* 


OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY 

^lPOR^i> 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/earlyhistoryofchOOtrevrich 


THE  EARLY  HISTORY 


OP 


CHARLES  JAMES  FOX 


BY 


GEOKGE   OTTO  TKEVELYAN,  M.P. 

AUTHOR  OP 

"the  life  and  letteks  of  lord  macaulay" 


NEW     YORK 
HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  FRANKLIN  SQUARE 

1880 


t>^o 


HENRY  MOME  STE1»HW» 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 


Stephen  Fox. — His  Career  Abroad  and  at  Home. — His  Wealth,  and  the 
Use  he  made  of  it. — His  Domestic  History. — Henry  Fox. — His  Mar- 
riage.— His  Opposition  to  the  Marriage  Act. — His  Style  of  Speaking. 
— Outbreak  of  the  Seven  Years'  War. — Fox  in  the  Pay-office,  and  Pitt 
Master  of  the  Nation. — Accession  of  George  the  Third,  and  Downfall 
of  Newcastle  and  Pitt.  —  Bute's  Unpopularity.  —  Fox  undertakes  to 
carry  the  Peace  through  Parliament. — The  Methods  by  which  he  made 
good  his  Promise. — He  Retires  from  the  House  of  Commons  with  the 
Title  of  Lord  Holland. — His  Quarrel  with  Lord  Shelburne  and  with 
Righy. —  Hatred  with  which  Lord  Holland  was  regarded  by  the 
Country Page  1 

CHAPTER  II.    ^ 
1749-1768." 

Lord  Holland  in  his  own  Family. — Birth  of  Charles  James  Fox. — His 
Childhood. — Wandsworth. — Eton  and  Paris. — Dr.  Barnard. — The  Musae 
Etoneflses. — Picture  at  Holland  House. — Lady  Sarah  Lennox. — Fox  at 
Oxford. — Tour  in  Italy. — Fox's  Industry  and  Accomplishments. — His 
Return  to  England 35 

CHAPTER  III. 

London  Society  at  the  Time  that  Fox  entered  the  Great  World. — Its 
Narrow  Limits  and  Agreeable  Character.  —  Prevalent  Dissipation 
and  Frivolity. — The  Duke  of  Grafton. — Rigby. — Lord  Weymouth. — 
Lord  Sandwich.— Fox  in  the  Inner  Circle  of  Fashion. — Lord  March. — 
Brooks's  Club.  —  Gaming. — Extravagance. — Drinking  and  Gout. — 
George  the  Third's  Temperate  and  Hardy  Habits. — State  of  Religion 
among  the  Upper  Classes. — Political  Life  in  1768. — Sinecures. — Pen- 
sions and  Places,  English,  Irish,  and  Colonial. — Other  Forms  of  Cor- 
ruption.— The  Venality  of  Parliament. — Low  Morality  of  Public  Men, 
and  Discontent  of  the  Nation. — Office  and  Opposition. — Fox's  Political 
Teachers 61 


"08037 


vi  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

George  the  Third. — His  Education. — His  Assiduity  in  Public  Business. — 
His  Theory  of  Personal  Government.  —  The  King's  Friends.  —  The 
King's  Interference  in  the  Details  of  Parliament  and  of  Elections. — His 
Dislike  of  the  Whigs. — Formation  of  the  Whig  Party. — Lord  Rocking- 
ham's Administration. — His  Dismissal. — Lord  Chatham's  Government 
and  the  Successive  Changes  in  its  Composition. — General  Election  of 
1768. — Fox  chosen  for  Midhurst. — His  Political  Opinions  and  Preju- 
dices.— He  selects  his  Party  and  takes  his  Seat. — Lord  Shelburne. — 
Fox  as  a  Young  Politician Page  102 

CHAPTER  V. 

1768-1769. 

Fox's  Maiden  Speech. — Wilkes. — His  Early  Life.  —  The  North  Briton 
and  the  u  Essay  on  Woman." — Persecution  of  Wilkes. — His  Exile. — 
Churchill. — Return  of  Wilkes,  and  his  Election  for  Middlesex. — Dis- 
turbances in  London. — Fatal  Affray  between  the  Troops  and  the  Peo- 
ple.— Determination  of  the  Court  to  crush  Wilkes. — Conflict  between 
the  House  of  Commons  and  the  Middlesex  Electors. — Enthusiasm  in 
the  City  on  Behalf  of  Wilkes. — Dingley.— Riot  at  Brentford. — Weak- 
ness of  the  Civil  Arm. — Colonel  Luttrell. — His  Cause  espoused  by  the 
Foxes. — Great  Debates  in  Parliament. — Rhetorical  Successes  of  Charles 
Fox. — The  King  and  Wilkes. — Burke  on  the  Middlesex  Election. — 
Proceedings  during  the  Recess. — Recovery  of  Lord  Chatham. — His 
Reconciliation  with  the  Grenvilles  and  the  Whigs 138 

CHAPTER  VI. 

1770. 

The  Effect  produced,  upon  the  Political  World  by  the  Reappearance  of 
Lord  Chatham. — His  Speech  upon  the  Address. — Camden  and  Granby 
separate  themselves  from  their  Colleagues. — Savile  rebukes  the  House 
of  Commons. — Charles  Yorke  and  the  Great  Seal. — The  Duke  of  Graf- 
ton resigns.  —  David  Hume. — Lord  North  goes  to  the  Treasury. — 
George  the  Third,  his  Ministers  and  his  Policy. — George  Grenville  on 
Election  Petitions  and  the  Civil  List. — Chatham  denounces  the  Cor- 
ruption of  Parliament. — Symptoms  of  Popular  Discontent. — The  City's 
Remonstrance  presented  to  the  King  and  condemned  by  Parliament. — 
Imminent  Danger  of  a  Collision  between  the  Nation  and  its  Rulers. — 
The  Letter  to  the  King. — Horace  Walpole  on  the  Situation. — The  Per- 
sonal Character  of  Wilkes,  and  its  Influence  upon  the  History  of  the 


CONTENTS.  Vli 

Country.  — Wilkes  regains  his  Liberty.  —  His  Subsequent  Career,  and 
the  Final  Solution  of  the  Controversy  about  the  Middlesex  Elec- 
tion  Page  193 

CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Favorable  Conditions  for  taking  Kank  as  an  Orator  under  which 
Fox  entered  Parliament.  —  His  Early  Career. — He  becomes  a  Junior 
Lord  of  the  Admiralty. — His  Father's  Pride  and  Pleasure.— Lord  Hol- 
land's Unpopularity. — The  Balances  of  the  Pay-office. — Lord  Holland's 
Indulgence  towards  his  Children. — King's  Gate. — Charles  Fox  and 
his  Studies. — His  Passion  for  Poetry. — Naples. — Paris. — Intimate  Re- 
lations between  the  Good  Society  of  France  and  England. — Shopping 
iu  Paris. — Intellectual  Commerce  between  the  Two  Countries. — Feel- 
ings of  Fox  towards  France. — Madame  du  Deffand. — Fitzpatrick. — 
Mrs.  Crewe. — Private  Theatricals. — Effect  of  his  Stage  Experience  on 
Fox's  Speaking 245 

CHAPTER  YIIL 
1770-1771. 

The  Law  of  Libel. — Great  Speech  by  Charles  Fox,  and  Burke's  Reply. — 
Final  Solution  of  the  Question. — Contest  of  Parliament  with  the  Re- 
porters.— Scene  in  the  Lords. — Indignation  of  the  Commons. — Artful 
Conduct  of  Charles  Fox. — Lord  George  Germaine's  Duel. — The  Ons- 
lows. — Their  Warfare  with  the  Press. — The  King  begins  to  take  an  In- 
terest in  the  Controversy. — A  Night  of  Divisions. — John  Wheble. — In- 
terference of  Wilkes. — Miller  Arrested,  and  Discharged  by  the  Guild- 
hall Bench. — Proceedings  in  the  House  of  Commons  against  the  Lord 
Mayor  and  Alderman  Oliver. — Rebellion  of  the  King's  Friends  against 
•■  Lord  North. — Fiery  Speech  of  Charles  Fox. — Feeling  against  him  in 
the  Country. — March  of  the  City  upon  Westminster. — Violent  Conduct 
of  the  Majority  in  the  House. — Wedderburn's  Defection  from  the  Op- 
position.— Popular  Excitement  outside  Parliament. — Fox  and  North 
Maltreated. — The  Lord  Mayor  and  the  Alderman  Committed  to  the 
Tower. — Their  Imprisonment  and  Release.  —  Testimonial  to  Wilkes. 
—  Establishment  of  the  Freedom  of  Reporting  Debates  in  Parlia- 
ment   289 

CHAPTER  IX. 
1771-1772. 

Fox  at  this  Period  a  Consistent  Defender  of  the  King's  System.— The 
Case  of  New  Shoreham. — The  Grenville  Act. — Quarrel  between  Fox 


viii  CONTENTS. 

and  Wedderburn. — The  Duke  of  Portland  and  Sir  James  Lowther. — 
The  Nullum  Tempus  Bill. — Mnemon. — Pertinacity  of  Sir  James  Low- 
ther.— Sir  William  Meredith  introduces  an  Amending  Bill,  which,  is 
opposed,  and  at  length  defeated,  by  Fox.  —  Fox  and  Burke.  —  Fox 
sends  a  Challenge  to  an  Unknown  Adversary. — The  Petition  of  the 
Clergy,  and  its  Fate. — Story  of  Mr.  Lindsey. — The  Dissenters'  Relief 
Bill. — Priestley  and  the  Early  Unitarians. — Courage  and  Independence 
of  Charles  Fox Page  348 

CHAPTEE  X. 

1772-1774, 

The  Moral  Danger  of  the  Position  in  which  Fox  now  stood. — He  at- 
tacks Lord  North  on  the  Church  Nullum  Tempus  Bill,  and  resigns 
the  Admiralty. — The  Motives  of  his  Conduct. — Marriages  of  the  Dukes 
of  Cumberland  and  Gloucester. — Anger  of  the  King. — The  Royal  Mar- 
riage Bill. — The  Bill  gets  through  the  Lords,  is  strenuously  opposed 
in  the  Commons,  and  with  difficulty  passes  into  Law. — Strong  Feeling 
of  Fox  on  the  Question. — His  Earnest  Efforts  against  the  Measure. — 
His  Sentiments  with  Regard  to  Women,  and  his  Eager  Care  of  their 
Rights  and  Interests  in  Parliament. — His  Private  Life. — The  Betting- 
book  at  Brooks's. — Personal  Tastes  and  Habits  of  Charles  Fox. — His 
Extravagance  and  Indebtedness.— Horace  Walpole  on  Fox. — Influence 
and  Popularity  of  the  Young  Man  in  the  House  of  Commons. — Fox 
goes  to  the  Treasury. — Lord  Clive. — Fox  and  Johnson. — John  Home 
Tooke. — Fox  leaves  the  Ministry,  never  to  return 390 

Index 453 


THE  EARLY  HISTORY 

OP 

CHARLES   JAMES    FOX, 


CHAPTER  I. 


Stephen  Fox. — His  Career  Abroad  and  at  Home. — His  Wealth,  and  the  Use 
he  made  of  it. — His  Domestic  History. — Henry  Fox. — His  Marriage. — 
His  Opposition  to  the  Marriage  Act. — His  Style  of  Speaking. — Outbreak 
of  the  Seven  Years'  War. — Fox  in  the  Pay-office,  and  Pitt  Master  of 
the  Nation. — Accession  of  George  the  Third,  and  Downfall  of  Newcastle 
and  Pitt. — Bute's  Unpopularity. — Fox  undertakes  to  carry  the  Peace 
through  Parliament.  —  The  Methods  by  which  he  made  good  his 
Promise. — He  retires  from  the  House  of  Commons  with  the  Title  of 
Lord  Holland. — His  Quarrel  with  Lord  Shelburne  and  with  Rigby. — 
Hatred  with  which  Lord  Holland  was  regarded  by  the  Country. 

Charles  James  Fox,  our  first  great  statesman  of  the  mod- 
ern school,  was  closely  connected  with  scenes  which  lie  far 
back  in  English  history.  His  grandfather,  if  not  the  most 
well-graced,  was  at  any  rate  one  of  the  best-paid,  actors  on 
the  stage  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Sir  Stephen  Fox  was 
born  in  1627.  "  The  founder  of  our  family,"  says  the  third 
Lord  Holland,  "seems,  notwithstanding  some  little  venial  en- 
deavors of  his  posterity  to  conceal  it,  to  have  been  of  a  very 
humble  stock ;"  and  Sir  Stephen's  biographer  and  panegyrist, 
writing  within  a  year  of  his  death,  has  very  little  to  tell  which 
can  destroy  the  effect  of  this  frank  confession.1     As  a  boy, 

1  It  is  difficult  to  overrate  the  value  of  the  "  Memorials  and  Correspond- 
ence of  Charles  James  Fox,"  which  Lord  Holland  commenced,  and  Lord 
Russell  continued,  to  edit.    But  for  their  labor  of  love,  a  biography  of 

1 


2  THE   EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

Fox  is  said  to  have  been  in  the  choir  of  Salisbury  Cathedral ; 
and  (what  proved  more  to  the  purpose  with  reference  to  his 
future  career)  he  was  well  and  early  grounded  in  the  art  of 
book-keeping.  At  the  age  of  fifteen  his  "  beauty  of  person 
and  towardliness  of  disposition"  recommended  him  to  the 
notice  of  the  Earl  of  Northumberland,  High  Admiral  of  Eng- 
land. Thence  he  passed  into  the  household  of  the  earl's 
brother,  Lord  Percy,  and  had,  no  doubt,  his  share  in  the  good 
living  for  which,  even  at  the  height  of  the  Civil  War,  that 
nobleman's  table  was  famous.1  Fox,  who  was  a  cavalier  as 
soon  as  he  was  anything,  was  employed  on  the  staff  in  an 
administrative  capacity  during  the  campaign  which  ended  at 
Worcester;  and  after  the  battle  was  over  he  took  an  active 
part  in  assisting  the  escape  of  Prince  Charles  to  Normandy. 

The  prince  passed  the  next  few  years  at  Paris  in  great 
distress.  In  1652  the  French  Court  relieved  his  more  pressing 
necessities  by  an  allowance  of  six  thousand  francs  a  month — 
a  pension  very  much  smaller,  and  less  regularly  paid,  than  that 
which,  as  King  of  England,  he  afterwards  enjoyed  from  the 
same  quarter.  As  time  went  on,  it  began  to  be  understood 
at  the  Louvre  that  Cromwell  would  be  better  pleased  if  the 
royal  fugitive  could  be  induced  to  shift  his  quarters.  Charles 
w^as  made  to  perceive  that  he  had  outstayed  his  welcome,  and 
gladly  entered  into  an  arrangement  by  which  he  wTas  enabled 
to  leave  Paris  out  of  debt,  and  to  settle  elsewhere  with  a  fair 
prospect  of  paying  his  way  if  his  household  could  only  be 
managed  with  the  requisite  economy.    At  this  juncture  Clar- 


the  great  Whig  would  be  an  ungrateful,  if  not  an  impossible,  task.  The 
"  Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Sir  S.  Fox,  Kt.,  from  his  First  Entrance  upon  the 
Stage  of  Action  under  the  Lord  Piercy  till  his  Decease,"  were  published 
in  the  year  1717.  With  regard  to  Sir  Stephen's  extraction,  the  writer  is 
content  to  say,  "As  it  is  not  material  to  enter  into  the  genealogy  of  the 
family  on  the  side  of  his  father,  who  was  of  substance  enough  to  breed 
up  his  son  in  a  liberal  education,  so  it  is  altogether  needless  to  ransack 
the  Heralds'  Office  for  the  origin  and  descent  of  his  mother." 

1  Clarendon  tells  us  of  Lord  Percy  that  "though  he  did  not  draw  the 
good  fellows  to  him  by  drinking,  yet  he  ate  well ;  which,  in  the  general 
scarcity  of  that  time,  drew  many  votaries  to  him." 


Chap.L]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOK.  3 

endon,  as  true  a  friend  as  prince  ever  had,  did  his  master  the 
inestimable  service  of  persuading  him  to  put  his  affairs  unre- 
servedly into  the  hands  of  Stephen  Fox,  "  a  young  man  bred 
under  the  severe  discipline  of  the  Lord  Peircy,  very  well 
qualified  with  languages,  and  all  other  parts  of  clerkship,  hon- 
esty, and  discretion  that  were  necessary  for  the  discharge  of 
such  a  trust."  Fox  thoroughly  answered  the  expectations  of 
his  patron.  At  whichever  of  the  German  capitals  or  Low- 
Country  watering-places  the  prince  preferred  to  fix  his  mod- 
est court,  he  never  was  without  the  means  of  living  in  com- 
fort and  respectability,  and  from  that  day  forth  he  knew  noth- 
ing more  of  the  lowest  humiliations  of  exile.  Fox  was  the 
first  to  bring  his  employer  the  news  of  Cromwell's  death, 
and  to  salute  him  as  the  real  King  of  Great  Britain,  "  since  he 
that  had  caused  him  to  be  only  titularly  so  was  no  longer  to 
be  numbered  among  the  living."  Yery  little  else  of  a  definite 
nature  is  told  about  him  in  his  biography,  and  probably  very 
little  else  was  known  to  its  author,  as  may  be  gathered  from 
the  fact  that,  of  the  hundred  and  forty-nine  pages  which  the 
book  contains,  no  less  than  sixty-seven  are  consumed  in  an  ac- 
count of  the  state  reception  which  the  Dutch  authorities  gave 
to  Charles  in  1660,  when  he  was  on  his  way  to  England  to 
receive  the  crown. 

As  soon  as  the  master  had  his  own  again,  the  servant's 
fortunes  rose  rapidly.  Fox  was  appointed  first  clerk  of  the 
Board  of  Green  Cloth,  paymaster  to  two  regiments,  and,  be- 
fore long,  paymaster- general  of  all  his  Majesty's  forces  in 
England.  Later  on  in  his  career  he  became  Master  of  the 
Horse,  and  one  of  the  Lords  Commissioners  of  the  Treasury. 
He  was  knighted.  He  obtained  the  reversion  of  a  rich  sine- 
cure. The  people  of  Salisbury,  "for  the  love  they  bore  to  a 
gentleman  who  did  them  the  honor  of  owing  his  birth  to 
their  neighborhood,"  chose  him  as  their  member,  and,  when 
he  retired  from  Parliament,  transferred  their  loyalty  to  his 
son.1     When  James  acceded  to  the  throne,  the  royal  seduc- 

1  Fox  showed  his  gratitude  to  the  church  in  whose  precinct  lie  was 
educated  after  a  fashion  which  churchmen  of  our  day  would  hardly  ap- 


4  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

tions  which  prevailed  over  the  faint  Protestantism  of  Sunder- 
land were  tried  upon  Fox ;  but  he  resisted  the  offer  of  a 
peerage,  and  stuck  manfully  to  his  religion.  The  priests  in- 
trigued to  have  him  removed  from  the  Commission  of  the 
Treasury ;  but  the  king,  who,  with  all  his  faults,  understood 
public  business  as  well  as  any  man  in  the  country,  insisted  on 
keeping  Fox  and  Godolphin  as  coadjutors  and  instructors  to 
the  untrained  Roman  Catholic  courtiers  who  formed  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Board.  When  the  Prince  of  Orange  landed,  the 
Bishop  of  London,  whom  a  very  moderate  amount  of  persecu- 
tion had  converted  from  a  preacher  of  non-resistance  into  a 
recruiting-officer  for  rebellion,  endeavored  to  tamper  with  the 
fidelity  of  Fox ;  but  the  old  placeman  refused  to  take  part 
against  a  monarch  "  whose  and  his  brother's  bread  he  had  so 
plentifully  eaten  of."  Sir  Stephen,  however,  was  not  a  Hyde 
or  a  Montrose.  The  best  that  his  biographer  can  find  to  say 
for  his  loyalty  is  that  "he  never  appeared  at  his  Highness' s 
court  to  make  his  compliments  there  till  the  king  had  left 
the  country."  William  had  no  great  difficulty  in  persuading 
him  to  take  his  seat  once  more  at  his  accustomed  boards. 
Thenceforward,  whatever  changes  might  occur  at  the  Treas- 
ury, Fox's  name  was  always  on  the  new  Commission.  The 
veteran  was  sorely  tried  when  Montague,  who  numbered  only 
half  his  years,  clambered  over  his  head  into  the  first  position 
in  the  State ;  but  ere  long  the  storm  of  faction  and  jealousy 
hurled  Montague  from  office,  and  when  the  sky  was  clear 
again  Sir  Stephen  still  was  at  his  post,  unappalled  and  un- 
scathed. A  favorite  with  twelve  successive  parliaments  and 
with  four  monarchs,  it  was  not  until  Anne  had  mounted  the 
throne  that  he  at  length  retired  into  private  life. 

His  places  were  enormously  lucrative,  and  he  was  soon  roll- 
ing in  wealth,  "honestly  got,  and  unenvied,"  says  Evelyn; 
"  which  is  next  to  a  miracle."  Evelyn  himself  informs  us 
how  Sir  Stephen  contrived  to  escape  the  evil  eye  which  or- 

preciate.  The  canon  who  preached  his  funeral  sermon  tells  us  that  "  he 
pewed  the  body  of  the  cathedral  church  at  Sarum  in  a  very  neat  man- 
ner, suitable  to  the  neatness  of  that  church,  of  which  he  was  in  many 
ways  a  great  benefactor." 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  5 

dinarily  pursues  a  self-made  man.  At  the  height  of  his  pros- 
perity he  continued  "as  humble  and  ready  to  do  a  courtesy 
as  ever  he  was."  He  was  honorably  mindful  of  the  source 
whence  his  opulence  was  mainly  derived,  and,  after  twenty 
years  at  the  Pay-office,  he  bethought  him  of  a  magnificent  de- 
vice for  restoring  to  the  army  some  part  of  the  fortune  which 
he  had  got  by  it.  He  it  was  who  inspired  Charles  with  that 
idea  of  founding  an  asylum  for  disabled  soldiers,  the  credit  of 
which  is  generally  ascribed  to  a  less  respectable  quarter.  Sir 
Stephen  furnished  much  more  than  the  first  suggestion.  He 
fostered  the  enterprise,  through  all  its  stages,  with  well-judged 
but  unstinted  supplies  of  money ;  and  if  his  original  inten- 
tions were  carried  out,  his  contribution  to  the  building  and 
maintenance  of  Chelsea  Hospital  can  have  fallen  little  short 
of  a  hundred  thousand  pounds. 

Sir  Stephen's  domestic  annals  were  at  least  as  remarkable 
as  his  public  history.    Somewhere  about  1654,  he  married  the 
sister  of  the  king's  surgeon,  by  whom  he  had  nine  children 
In  1682  he  made  over  the  pay  mastership  to  his  eldest  son 
Charles,  who,  three  years  afterwards,  at  a  great  political  crisis 
preferred  a  clear  conscience  to  the  emoluments  of  his  place 
and,  by  the  single  act  of  his  life  which  remains  on  record 
proved  that  he  was  worthy  of  giving  a  name  to  his  nephew. 
Sir  Stephen  married  his  eldest  daughter  to  Lord  Cornwallis, 
a  nobleman  who  habitually  "  lost  as  much  as  any  one  would 
trust  him,  but  was  not  quite  as  ready  at  paying,"  and  whose 
gambling-scrapes  sadly  ruffled  the  serenity  of  one  who  is  de- 

1  In  1G85  the  Opposition  protested  against  granting  money  to  James 
the  Second  until  grievances  had  been  redressed.  When  the  division 
was  taken,  "to  the  dismay,"  writes  Macanlay,  "  of  the  ministers,  many 
persons  whose  votes  the  court  had  absolutely  depended  on  were  seen 
moving  towards  the  door.  Among  them  was  Charles  Fox,  paymaster  of 
the  forces,  and  son  of  Sir  Stephen  Fox,  clerk  of  the  Green  Cloth.  The 
paymaster  had  been  induced  by  his  friends  to  absent  himself  during 
part  of  the  discussion.  But  his  anxiety  had  become  insupportable.  He 
came  down  to  the  Speaker's  chamber,  heard  part  of  the  debate,  with- 
drew, and,  after  hesitating  for  an  hour  or  two  between  conscience  and 
five  thousand  pounds  a  year,  took  a  manly  resolution  and  rushed  into 
the  House  just  in  time  to  vote." 


6  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

scribed  by  Grammont,  in  terms  which  read  oddly  as  applied 
to  any  of  the  name  of  Fox,  as  among  "  the  richest  and  most 
regular  men  in  England."  The  old  gentleman  did  not  fail 
to  profit  by  his  dear-bought  experience;  and  Evelyn  gives 
an  amusing  sketch  of  the  grave  and  dexterous  courtesy  with 
which  he  foiled  an  attempt,  on  the  part  of  Lady  Sunderland, 
to  saddle  him  with  a  second  high-born  and  expensive  son-in- 
law.  His  sons  were  all  childless ;  and,  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
six,  after  his  retirement  from  the  Treasury,  "  unwilling  that 
so  plentiful  an  estate  should  go  out  of  the  name,  and  being  of 
a  vegete  and  hale  constitution,"  he  took  to  wife  the  daughter 
of  a  Grantham  clergyman,  who  brought  him  twins  within  the 
twelvemonth.  Two  more  children  were  born  before  Sir 
Stephen's  death,  which  took  place  at  his  Chiswick  villa  in 
the  year  1716.  He  had  attended  Charles  the  First  on  the 
scaffold,  and  he  lived  to  discuss  the  execution  of  Lord  Der- 
wentwater.  One  of  his  daughters  by  the  first  marriage  is  said 
to  have  died  while  a  baby.  Lady  Sarah  Napier,  the  sister  of 
his  daughter-in-law,  survived  until  the  year  1826 ;  and  there 
is  no  reason  to  question  the  tradition  that  Charles  Fox  had 
two  aunts  who  died  a  hundred  and  seventy  years  from  each 
other. 

Lady  Fox  outlived  her  husband  only  three  years.  Sir  God- 
frey Kneller,  in  the  picture  at  Holland  House,  endows  her 
with  small  and  pretty  features,  and  hair  and  complexion  as 
dark  as  her  grandson's.  A  fortnight  before  her  death  she 
called  her  children  together,  and  made  them  a  quaint  little 
address  which  shows  that  she  had  already  discerned  the  ten- 
dencies of  the  family  character.  "  Don't  be  a  fop,  don't  be  a 
rake,"  she  said  to  her  eldest  son.  "  Mind  on  your  name — Ste- 
phen Fox ;  that,  I  hope,  will  keep  you  from  being  wicked. 
You,  Harry,  having  a  less  fortune,  won't  be  subject  to  so  many 
temptations;  but  withstand  those  you  have  when  you  grow 
up.  Then  you'll  learn  to  swear,  to  rake  about,  to  game,  and 
at  last  be  ruined  by  those  you  unhappily  think  your  friends. 
Love  your  brother,  Stephen ;  I  charge  you  all  love  one  anoth- 
er. You  have  enemies  enough ;  make  not  one  another  so." 
In  after-years  Henry  Fox,  the  most  fiercely  hated  public  man 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  7 

of  his  own,  or  perhaps  of  any  other,  generation,  may  have 
called  to  mind  these  affectionate  forebodings,  which  can  still 
be  read  in  his  own  boyish  handwriting. 

Stephen  became,  in  coarse  of  time,  Earl  of  Ilchester,  and 
the  founder  of  a  house  which  has  steadily  grown  in  prosper- 
ity and  general  esteem.  Henry  Fox  had  a  stormy  and  disso- 
lute youth,  and  did  not  turn  to  serious  affairs  until  he  had 
wasted  some  of  his  best  years  and  the  greater  part  of  his  pat- 
rimony. He  was  thirty  when  he  entered  Parliament,  and 
thirty-two  before  he  got  office,  an  age  at  which  his  son  was 
the  first  man  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Any  chance  of 
Henry  Fox  being  a  Jacobite  was  effectually  extinguished  by 
his  early  distaste  for  certain  doleful  ceremonies  with  which 
the  30th  of  January  was  honored  in  the  paternal  household. 
His  principles,  if  they  could  be  dignified  by  such  a  title,  were 
Whig,  and  he  owed  his  first  place  to  Walpole,  whose  favor  he 
repaid  by  a  fidelity  which  that  statesman  seldom  experienced, 
and  never  expected.1  To  the  end  of  his  life,  Fox  made  Sir 
Robert's  quarrels  his  own.  He  could  not  forgive  Lord  Hard- 
wicke  for  deserting  their  common  chief,  as  the  great  chancel- 
lor in  after-years  had  ample  reason  to  know.  "Mr.  Fox," 
wrote  Bubb  Dodington,  "had  something  very  frank  and 
open  about  him.  If  he  had  any  dislike  to  me,  it  must  be 
from  my  hating  Sir  Eobert  Walpole ;  for  Fox  really  loved 
that  man."  He  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  adminis- 
tration which  had  profited  by  his  leader's  fall;  and  it  was  not 
until  Pelham  became  prime-minister,  on  the  recommendation, 
and  almost  under  the  auspices,  of  Walpole,  that  Fox  consent- 
ed to  return  to  public  employment  as  a  Commissioner  of  the 
Treasury. 

The  first  exploit  by  which  he  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
world  was  not  performed  in  his  capacity  of  an  administrator. 
Horace  Walpole  has  left  us  the  description  of  a  ball  given  in 
the  days  when  his  father  was  still  in  power ;  and  it  must  be 

1  A  colleague  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  said  to  him  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, while  Winnington  was  speaking,  "  That  young  dog  promised  that 
he  would  always  stand  by  us."  "I  advise  my  young  men  never  to  use 
I  always,'  "  was  the  quiet  reply. 


8  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  I. 

confessed  that  there  are  some  features  in  the  picture  which 
modern  London  might  copy  with  advantage.  "  There  were 
one  hundred  and  ninety-seven  persons  at  Sir  Thomas's,  and 
yet  nobody  felt  a  crowd.  He  had  taken  off  all  his  doors,  and 
so  separated  the  old  and  the  young  that  neither  were  incon- 
venienced with  the  other.  The  ball  began  at  eight.  Except 
Lady  Ancram,  no  married  woman  danced.  The  beauties  were 
the  Duke  of  Richmond's  two  daughters,  and  their  mother, 
still  handsomer  than  they.  The  duke  sat  by  his  wife  all 
night,  kissing  her  hand."  It  is  strange  to  reflect  that  this 
pair  of  lovely  girls,  and  a  third  sister  whose  turn  to  be  the 
reigning  toast  was  still  in  the  future,  were  destined  to  be  the 
mothers  of  Charles  Fox,  Sir  Charles  Napier,  and  Lord  Ed- 
ward Fitzgerald.  Forcibly,  indeed,  does  such  a  thought  bring 
it  home  to  the  mind  that  the  period  of  which  this  book  will 
treat  was  the  transition  between  the  old  order  of  things  and 
the  new. 

A  more  curious  illustration  of  the  sentiments  and  manners 
of  the  past  could  not  easily  be  found  than  the  story  of  Hen- 
ry Fox's  marriage.  Fox  lost  his  heart  to  Lady  Caroline  Len- 
nox, and  won  hers  in  return.  He  made  a  formal  application 
for  her  hand,  but  the  duke  and  duchess  would  not  hear  of 
it ;  and  Lady  Caroline's  relatives  were  already  looking  around 
for  a  more  eligible  suitor,  when,  early  in  the  month  of  May, 
1744,  the  town  was  convulsed  by  the  intelligence  that  the 
lovers  had  settled  the  matter  by  a  secret  wedding,  which,  in 
those  days,  was  a  much  less  arduous  operation  than  at  present. 
The  sensation  was  instant  and  tremendous.  At  the  opera  the 
news  ran  along  the  front  boxes  "  exactly  like  fire  in  a  train  of 
gunpowder."  It  was  said  at  the  time  that  more  noise  could 
hardly  have  been  made  if  the  Princess  Caroline  had  gone  off 
with  her  dancing-master.  All  the  blood  royal  was  up  in  arms 
to  avenge  what  was  esteemed  an  outrage  upon  the  memory 
of  his  sacred  Majesty  Charles  the  Second,  who,  if  he  had  been 
alive  to  see  it,  would  have  been  infinitely  diverted  by  the  ca- 
tastrophe, and  would  doubtless  have  taken  his  great-grand- 
daughter's part.  Sir  Charles  Hanbury  Williams,  who  had 
lent  his  house  for  the  marriage,  found  that  his  complicity  was 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  9 

like  to  have  cost  him  his  red  ribbon.  The  father  and  mother 
of  the  young  lady  put  off  their  social  engagements,  and  hur- 
ried away  to  hide  their  vexation  at  their  country-seat.  There 
is  something  irresistibly  comical  in  the  letters  of  condolence 
which  came  pouring  in  upon  them  at  Goodwood.  Lord  II- 
chester  wrote  to  exculpate  himself  and  his  wife  from  any  pre- 
vious knowledge  of  his  brother's  designs.  Lord  Lincoln  had 
heard,  with  the  greatest  uneasiness,  that  he  and  his  sister  had 
been  "  falsely  and  villanously"  charged  with  being  concerned 
in  so  unhappy  and  imprudent  a  business.  The  Duke  of  New- 
castle buzzed  round  the  court,  mumbling  and  bewailing  to 
every  peer  he  met  about  "this  most  unfortunate  affair,"  till 
he  was  unlucky  enough  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  Lord  Carter- 
et.1 "I  thought,"  said  Carteret,  "that  our  fleet  was  beaten, 
or  that  Mons  had  been  betrayed  to  the  French.  At  last  it 
came  out  that  Harry  Fox  wTas  married,  which  I  knew  before. 
This  man,  who  is  secretary  of  state,  cannot  be  consoled  be- 
cause two  people,  to  neither  of  whom  he  is  any  relation,  were 
married  without  their  parents'  consent !"  The  prime-minis- 
ter, who  both  liked  and  feared  Fox,  would  have  been  very 
glad  to  have  left  the  matter  alone,  and  the  more  so  because 
Miss  Pelham  stoutly  refused  to  abandon  her  friend  Lady  Car- 
oline, and,  in  the  vigorous  language  which  young  women  then 
allowed  themselves  to  use,  declared  to  any  one  who  denied 
Mr.  Fox's  claim  to  be  called  a  gentleman  that  if  Lord  Ilches- 
ter  had  been  free  to  present  himself,  the  duke  and  duchess 
would  both  have  jumped  at  the  match.     She  was  now,  she 

1  Lord  Carteret,  afterwards  Earl  Granville,  is  the  only  person  of  whom 
wTe  hear  too  little  in  the  voluminous  memoirs  of  his  time.  His  flashes  of 
jovial  common-sense  never  fail  to  infuse  some  human  interest  into  the 
dreary  political  period  which  coincided  with  the  ascendency  of  the  Pel- 
hams.  Unfortunately  he  loved  his  ease  better  than  his  country,  and  was 
only  too  ready  to  lounge  away  his  life  in  the  background,  "resigned," 
says  Mr.  Carlyle,  "  in  a  big  contemptuous  way  to  have  had  his  really  con- 
siderable career  closed  upon  him  by  the  smallest  of  mankind,"  and  known 
in  history  chiefly  for  "  occasional  spurts  of  strong  rugged  speech  which 
come  from  him,  and  a  good  deal  of  wine  taken  into  him."  Two  bottles 
of  burgundy  were  his  daily  allowance. 


10  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

said,  ill  other  people's  power,  but  before  long  would  be  her 
own  mistress  and  able  to  please  herself;  which  meant  that 
she  was  on  the  eve  of  being  married  to  Lord  Lincoln,  who,  no 
doubt,  soon  found  occasion  to  repent  that  he  had  been  in  such 
a  hurry  to  take  the  wrong  side  in  so  interesting  a  controversy. 
In  order  to  keep  on  terms  with  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  Pel- 
ham  thought  it  necessary  to  speak  with  grave  disapproval  of 
his  audacious  subordinate,  and,  during  at  least  a  twelvemonth, 
continued  to  address  him  as  "  Dear  Sir "  instead  of  "  Dear 
Harry."  But  the  anger  of  a  minister  against  a  formidable 
member  of  Parliament  is  not  an  enduring  or  implacable  emo- 
tion, and  Fox  soon  discovered  that  his  political  future  had 
gained  a  great  deal  more  than  it  had  lost  by  his  having  as- 
pired to  a  duke's  daughter.  The  parents  remained  obdurate 
from  1744  to  1748 ;  but  even  they  melted  at  last,  and,  in  a 
letter  which  is  extant,  announced  to  their  erring  daughter 
that  the  conflict  between  reason  and  nature  was  over,  and  that 
tenderness  had  carried  the  day.  The  birth  of  a  son,  whom 
the  duke  candidly  admits  to  be  an  "  innocent  child,"  contrib- 
uted not  a  little  to  this  change  of  feeling ;  and,  when  Pox  had 
for  years  been  secretary  at  war,  a  privy-councillor,  and  the 
readiest  speaker  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  was  solemnly 
forgiven  for  having  married  above  his  station. 

Charles  Fox's  mother,  if  pictures  may  be  trusted  (and  in 
her  day  they  spoke  true),  must,  at  each  successive  stage  of 
life,  have  possessed  in  a  high  degree  the  charms  appropriate 
to  her  years.  Hogarth  makes  her  the  prettiest  and  most 
prominent  figure  in  a  delicious  group  of  small  actors  and 
actresses  just  out  of  the  nursery,  who  are  playing  the  "  Con- 
quest of  Mexico"  by  the  fireside  for  the  amusement  of  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland ;  and  her  latest  portrait,  taken  when 
her  hair  was  gray,  is  marked  by  a  tranquil,  serious  expression, 
which  is  singularly  winning.  Fox  and  Lady  Caroline  were, 
from  first  to  last,  an  enviable  couple.  They  lived  together 
most  happily  for  more  than  thirty  years,  and  the  wife  survived 
the  husband  not  quite  so  many  days.  Neither  of  them  ever 
knew  content  except  in  the  possession,  or  the  immediate  ex- 
pectation, of  the  other's  company ;  and  their  correspondence 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  11 

continued  to  be  that  of  lovers  until  their  long  honeymoon 
was  finally  over.  "  Indeed,  my  dear  angel,"  wrote  Fox,  twelve 
years  after  marriage,  "  you  have  no  reason  to  be  peevish  with 
me.  Ask  yourself  whether  you  know  an  instance  of  my  want 
of  confidence  in  you,  or  of  your  want  of  power  with  me. 
Upon  my  word,  you  do  not.  I  wrote  to  you  yesterday.  I 
rode  to  town  this  morning ;  found  six  people  in  my  house ; 
went  to  court,  Parliament,  dined  late,  and  am  at  this  moment 
waited  for  at  the  Speaker's.  What  can  I  more  than  snatch 
this  time  to  tell  you  that  I  am,  for  me,  well,  and  that  I  love 
you  dearly  ?"  Perfect  trust  and  passionate  affection  breathe 
through  every  page  of  the  letters,  so  close  upon  each  other 
in  date,  and  so  ungrudging  in  length,  in  which  Henry  Fox's 
easy,  kindly,  and  humorous  words 

"Lie  disordered  in  the  paper,  just 
As  hearty  nature  speaks  them." 

Fox  has  left  on  the  history  of  his  times  a  testimony  to  his 
conjugal  regard  which  is  highly  characteristic  of  the  man. 
In  the  reign  of  George  the  Second  the  scandal  of  the  old  mar- 
riage laws  had  come  to  a  head.  Those  facilities  for  extempo- 
rizing a  wedding,  which  are  not  without  inconvenience  in  the 
north  of  our  island,  had  proved  far  too  lax  for  the  warmer 
and  less  provident  temperament  of  Englishmen.  The  vision 
of  a  broken-down  parson  ready,  without  asking  questions,  to 
marry  any  man  to  any  woman  for  a  crown  and  a  bottle  was 
an  ever-present  terror  to  guardians  and  parents.  Numerous 
were  the  cases  in  which  boys  of  rank  had  become  the  prey  of 
infamous  harpies,  and  girls  with  money  or  beauty  had  found 
that  the  services  of  a  clergyman  were  employed  as  a  cloak  for 
plunder  or  seduction.  A  sham  marriage  enters  into  the  plot 
of  half  the  novels  of  that  period  ;  and  the  fate  which  in  fiction 
poor  Olivia  Primrose  suffered,  and  the  future  Lady  Grandi- 
son  narrowly  escaped,  became  a  terrible  reality  to  many  of 
their  sex.  Nor  were  the  miseries  entailed  by  such  practices 
confined  to  a  single  generation.  The  succession  to  property 
was  rendered  doubtful  and  insecure ;  every  day  in  term-time 
produced  hearings  in  Chancery,  or  appeals  in  the  Lords,  con- 


12  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

cerning  the  validity  of  a  marriage  which  had  been  solemnized 
thirty  years  before  in  the  back-parlor  of  a  public-house,  or  in 
some  still  more  degraded  haunt  of  vice;  and  the  children 
might  be  ruined  by  an  act  of  momentary  folly  committed 
when  the  father  was  a  midshipman  on  leave  from  Sheerness, 
or  a  Westminster  boy  out  for  a  half-holiday. 

In  the  year  1753,  Lord  Hardwicke  undertook  to  remedy 
the  evil.     He  introduced  a  bill  which  made  effectual  provision 
for  putting  a  stop  to  the  Fleet  marriages ;  but  his  measure 
was  so  constructed  as  to  inflict  a  new  injustice  upon  a  section 
of  the  community  which  had  already  endured  enough  from 
the  partiality  of  our  legislature.    The  chancellor  insisted  that 
everybody,  including  Soman  Catholics  and  Dissenters,  must 
either  be  married  according  to  the  ritual  of  the  establishment, 
or  not  be  married  at  all,  whatever  objections  they  might  en- 
tertain to  a  service  some  passages  of  which  cause  even  the 
most  devout  pair  of  Church  people  to  wince  when  it  is  read 
over  them.     The  bill  got  easily  through  the  Lords;  but  as 
soon  as  it  appeared  in  the  House  of  Commons  it  aroused  an 
opposition,  vigorous,  obstinate,  and  intensely  clever,  but  in 
which  it  is  difficult  to  discover  a  single  trace  of  public  spirit. 
Little  or  nothing  was  said  about  the  grievance  of  the  Noncon- 
formists— a  grievance  which,  in  our  century,  it  took  eight 
sessions  to  redress.     Other  grave  defects,  productive  in  com- 
ing years  of  infinite  confusion  and  litigation,  were  left  un- 
noticed by  orators  who  lavished  their  flowers  of  rhetoric  and 
wit  upon  prophecies  that  the  bill  would  check  population 
and  reduce  England  to  a  third-rate  power,  and  that  fine  ladies 
would  never  consent  to  be  asked  for  three  Sundays  running 
in   the   parish   church.      Charles   Townshend  delighted  the 
House,  never  very  critical  of  a  new  argument,  by  a  pathetic 
appeal  on  behalf  of  younger  sons,  whom  Lord  Hardwicke's 
bill  would  debar  from  running  away  with  heiresses.     Were 
fresh  shackles,  he  asked,  to  be  forged  in  order  that  men  of 
abilities  might  be  prevented  from  rising  to  a  level  with  their 
elder  brothers?1     It  was  on  this  occasion  that  Townshend 

1  Charles  Townshend  discovered,  in  the  course  of  the  next  year,  that 


Chap.  L]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  13 

first  brought  into  successful  play  his  rare  personal  advantages. 
His  elegant  and  commanding  figure,  his  vehement  yet  grace- 
ful action,  his  clear  voice  and  cheery  laugh,  the  art  (said  an 
acute  observer)  with  which  he  disguised  everything  but  his 
vanity,  completely  carried  away  with  him  an  audience  which 
thenceforward  he  always  had  at  his  command. 

The  encounter  in  which  Charles  Townshend  won  his  spurs, 
was  only  a  preliminary  skirmish.  "  The  speeches,"  says  Wal- 
pole,  "had  hitherto  been  flourishes  in  the  air.  At  last  the 
real  enemy  came  forth,  Mr.  Fox,  who  neither  spared  the  bill 
nor  the  author  of  it ;  as,  wherever  he  laid  his  finger,  it  was 
not  wont  to  be  light."  A  law  which  annulled  a  marriage 
made  without  consent  of  parents,  and  which  treated  the  prin- 
cipals in  the  transaction  as  common  felons,  was,  not  unnatu- 
rally, resented  by  the  hero  of  the  most  famous  runaway  match 
of  the  generation.  Fired  with  indignation  at  what  he  regard- 
ed as  an  affront  to  the  romance  of  his  life — a  sentiment  which 
never  died  out  of  his  family,  for  neither  Charles  Fox  nor  the 
third  Lord  Holland  could  speak  of  the  Marriage  Act  with  pa- 
tience—he stood  forth  as  the  champion  of  oppressed  lovers, 
and  declared  that  it  was  cruel  to  force  upon  the  country  a 
measure  which,  from  the  first  word  to  the  last,  was  dictated  by 
aristocratic  pride  and  heartlessness.  He  had  high  words  with 
his  own  leader  on  every  clause,  and  almost  on  every  sentence ; 
but,  while  striking  at  Pelham,  he  wras  really  belaboring  Lord 
Hardwicke  in  effigy.  "  I  will  speak  so  loud,"  he  cried,  "  that 
I  will  be  heard  outside  the  Ilouse;"  and  heard  he  was  to 
such  effect  that  the  lord  chancellor's  life  became  a  burden  to 
him  as  long  as  the  bill  remained  in  the  Commons.  Day  after 
day  the  secretary  at  war  made  the  highest  lay  dignitary  in  the 
kingdom  a  butt  for  his  unsparing  ridicule  and  invective ;  un- 
til at  length  a  ludicrous  simile,  applied  to  his  lordship  amidst 


the  new  act  did  not  stand  in  the  way  of  a  younger  son  who  wanted  to 
make  a  great  marriage,  if  only  he  would  be  content  with  a  dowager.  He 
proved  an  excellent  husband,  though  he  was  rather  too  fond  of  amusing 
his  company  by  congratulating  his  wife  on  her  good-luck  with  a  freedom 
suited  rather  to  his  century  than  to  ours. 


14  THE   EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

roars  of  laughter,  proved  too  much  for  the  filial  and  profes- 
sional feelings  of  Charles  Yorke,  who,  as  the  son  of  his  father, 
had  already  a  great  business  in  Chancery,  and  who  was  begin- 
ning to  make  his  mark  in  Parliament  as  a  cultured  but  some- 
what affected  speaker.  With  a  sensitiveness  of  which  he  was 
one  day  to  give  a  tragical  proof,  the  young  man  started  to  his 
feet,  descanted  in  high-flown  terms  upon  Lord  Hardwicke's 
office  and  character,  and  denounced  the  insolence  of  his  assail- 
ant as  "  new  in  Parliament,  new  in  politics,  and  new  in  ambi- 
tion.'' The  secretary  at  war,  in  his  reply,  rang  the  changes 
on  these  sententious  periods  with  the  pitiless  skill  of  a  veteran 
gladiator,  and,  none  the  worse  for  the  correction,  returned  to 
the  charge  on  the  third  reading,  and  kept  the  ear  of  the 
House  for  a  full  hour  and  a  half,  while  he  fought  his  battles 
over  again  in  a  speech  of  which  one  fragment  fortunately  re- 
mains to  us  as  a  sample  of  the  source  whence  the  prince  of  all 
debaters  inherited  his  unrivalled  facility.  Fox  was  insisting 
that  the  measure  was  so  intolerably  rigorous,  and  at  the  same 
time  so  carelessly  framed,  that  the  ministers  themselves,  whom 
the  chancellor  had  told  off  to  be  its  body-guard,  for  very  shame 
had  been  forced  to  amend  it  until  its  own  father  would  fail  to 
recognize  it ;  and  with  that  he  flourished  a  copy  of  the  bill, 
on  which  the  alterations  were  written  in  red  ink.  "  How 
bloody  it  looks !"  said  the  solicitor-general.  "  Yes,"  cried  Fox ; 
"  but  thou  canst  not  say  I  did  it.  See  what  a  rent  the  learned 
Casca  made ;"  and  he  pointed  to  a  clause  which  had  been  al- 
tered by  the  solicitor- general  himself.  "  Through  this  the 
well-beloved  Brutus  stabbed ;"  and  here  he  indicated  Pelham 
with  an  emphatic  gesture.  To  a  well-disciplined  member  of 
a  modern  government  there  is  something  grotesque  in  the  re- 
flection that  the  actors  in  such  a  scene  were  all  ranged  side  by 
side  along  the  same  Treasury  bench. 

Lord  Hardwicke  was  wise  enough  to  remember  that  an 
orator  whose  anger  is  real  cannot  safely  trust  himself  to  the 
impulse  of  the  moment.  Taking  his  revenge  with  discretion, 
he  read  in  the  House  of  Lords  an  elaborate  philippic,  in 
which  he  designated  his  traducer  as  "a  dark  and  insidious 
genius,  the  engine  of  personality  and  faction."     Then,  hav- 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  15 

ing  referred  to  some  sentences  of  apology  which  Fox  had 
had  the  grace  to  utter,  but  which,  it  must  be  allowed,  bore  a 
very  small  proportion  to  the  magnitude  of  the  offence,  the 
injured  chancellor  concluded  in  a  style  half  -  way  between 
good  prose  and  bad  verse,  "  I  despise  the  invective,  and  I  de- 
spise the  retractation.  I  despise  the  scurrility,  and  I  despise 
the  adulation."  The  report  of  this  outburst  came  to  Fox 
while  he  was  amusing  himself  at  Vauxhall;  whereupon  he 
gathered  round  him  a  knot  of  young  members  of  Parliament 
(a  class  among  whom,  like  his  son  after  him,  he  was  always 
a  great  authority),  and  assured  them,  in  his  most  animated 
language,  that  if  the  session  had  lasted  another  fortnight 
he  would  have  paid  off  Lord  Hardwicke  with  interest.  In 
his  wrath  he  sought  an  interview  with  the  king,  and  began 
to  complain  of  the  chancellor;  but  his  Majesty  cut  him 
short  with  the  remark  that  Fox  had  only  himself  to  blame 
for  the  quarrel,  and  that  he  had  given  at  least  as  good  as 
he  had  got.  The  secretary  at  war  declared  to  the  king, 
on  his  honor,  that  there  had  been  nothing  factious  or  un- 
derhand in  his  behavior.  "  The  moment  you  give  me  your 
honor,"  was  the  reply,  "  I  believe  you ;  but  I  must  tell  you, 
as  I  am  no  liar,  that  you  have  been  much  suspected."  Be- 
fore he  quitted  the  royal  presence,  Fox,  utilizing  the  oppor- 
tunity with  an  effrontery  which  was  all  his  own,  had  con- 
trived to  extract  from  his  Majesty  the  promise  of  a  small 
sinecure. 

His  conduct  on  the  Marriage  Bill  did  Fox  no  harm  either 
in  the  cabinet  or  in  the  closet.  "  The  king,"  said  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland  to  him,  "  will  like  you  the  better  for  what 
has  passed.  He  thinks  you  a  man,  and  he  knows  that  none 
of  the  rest  have  the  spirit  of  a  mouse."  He  had  won  the 
respect  of  his  official  superiors  by  showing  that,  in  case  of 
need,  he  could  fight  for  his  own  hand.  The  time  was  ap- 
proaching when,  if  Fox  had  had  a  particle  of  patriotism  or 
disinterestedness  in  his  composition,  he  might  have  left  be- 
hind him  one  of  the  greatest  names  in  English  history.  In 
March,  1754,  Pelham  died  suddenly,  and  the  inheritance  of 
Sir  Eobert  Walpole   was   open   to   any   one   who  had   the 


16  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

strength  to  seize  and  to  hold  it.1  The  Duke  of  Newcastle 
succeeded  to  his  brother's  place  at  the  Treasury ;  but  every- 
body was  aware  that  the  substance  of  authority,  then  as  now, 
would  rest  with  the  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It 
took  Newcastle  eighteen  months  to  learn  this  obvious  truth. 
Avaricious  of  power,  which  he  hoarded,  but  knew  not  how 
to  employ,  he  selected  Sir  Thomas  Eobinson,  a  dull  diploma- 
tist, ignorant  of  the  very  phraseology  of  debate,  to  speak  for 
a  government  in  which  Fox  was  secretary  at  war  and  Pitt 
paymaster  -  general.  Sir  Thomas  soon  had  reason  to  wish 
himself  safely  back  in  the  embassy  at  Vienna.  Acting  heart- 
ily in  concert,  for  the  first  and  last  time  in  their  lives,  his 
terrible  subordinates  divided  between  them  the  easy  task  of 
making  their  chief  ridiculous.  Pitt  would  crush  Sir  Thomas 
beneath  the  weight  of  his  august  insolence,  and  then  wrould 
be  rebuked  by  Fox  in  an  exquisitely  humorous  strain  of 
ironical  loyalty ;  and  their  victim  dreaded  the  defence  even 
more  than  the  attack.  Murray,  the  attorney-general,  whose 
close  reasoning  and  copious  and  polished  diction  qualified 
him  to  hold  his  own  against  any  single  adversary,  did  not 
venture  to  face  such  a  combination  of  talent ;  and  when  Pitt, 
tired  of  his  inglorious  sport,  began  to  strike  at  higher  game, 
Newcastle  wTas  frightened  into  acknowledging  that  something 
must  be  sacrificed  in  order  to  preserve  himself  from  the  fate 
of  his  puppet.  In  1755,  Fox  was  invited  to  join  the  cabinet, 
into  which  he  had  not  as  yet  obtained  admission,  and  was 
asked  whether  he  would  consent  to  act  under  Sir  Thomas 
Robinson.  "  What  is  acting  under  him  ?"  he  answered, 
laughing.  "If  we  both  rise  to  speak,  I  will  yield  to  him. 
If  there  is  a  meeting  of  the  council,  it  will  be  his  paper  and 
his  pens  and  his  green  table." 2     The  offer,  however,  was  ac- 

1  Pelliam  died  at  six  in  the  morning.  By  eight  o'clock  Fox  had  be- 
gun his  round  of  calls  upon  the  deceased  minister's  possible  successors, 
and  before  noon  he  had  obtained  an  interview  with  the  bereaved  brother. 

2  Fox  wrote  to  his  wife,  in  the  last  fortnight  of  1754,  "  I  must  tell  you 
a  compliment  of  Lord  Granville's  imagination,  and  whether  I  tell  you  be- 
cause it  is  pretty  or  because  it  flatters  me,  or  both,  you  may  judge.  I 
was  not  present.      'They  must,'  says  he,  'gain  Fox.     They  must  not 


Chap.  L]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  17 

cepted,  and  the  redoubtable  alliance  dissolved ;  but  Fox  per- 
manently suffered  in  reputation  by  this  breach  of  faith  tow- 
ards his  great  rival,  whose  honor  the  nation  had  already  be- 
gun to  identify  with  its  own. 

The  world  wondered  that  so  grasping  a  man  should  have 
given  himself  away  for  so  little ;  but  Fox  had  judged  the 
situation  with  a  discerning  eye.  Before  the  year  had  ended, 
he  was  secretary  of  state  and  leader  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. And  now  began  a  duel  of  giants,  which  lasted,  with 
varying  fortune,  over  the  space  of  three  sessions  and  through 
four  changes  of  government.  The  antagonists  were  not  ill- 
matched.  Fox,  unattractive  in  person  and  with  defective 
elocution,  surpassed  all  the  orators  of  his  time  in  the  force, 
the  abundance,  and  the  justness  of  the  proofs  and  illustra- 
tions with  which  he  supported  and  explained  his  views.  His 
homely  yet  pointed  and  vehement  method  of  debate  was 
admirably  suited  to  the  taste  of  hearers  who  disliked  set 
speeches,  and  no  longer  relished  the  similes,  metaphors,  and 
historical  parallels  which  formerly  were  in  vogue,  and  in 
whose  minds  the  increasing  study  of  pamphlets  and  news- 
papers had  begun  to  create  a  demand  for  practical  arguments 
founded  upon  the  solid  facts  of  the  case.  Fox  was  the  sworn 
enemy  of  lawyers  who  had  seats  in  Parliament.  "  He  loved 
disputing  as  much  as  they  do,"  wrote  Horace  Walpole ;  "  but 
he  loved  sense,  which  they  make  a  trade  of  perplexing."  It 
was  well  said  that  Fox  always  spoke  to  the  question,  and 
Pitt  to  the  passion;  and  in  ordinary  times  an  orator  who 
speaks  to  the  question  is  master  of  the  field.  But  the  time, 
far  from  being  ordinary,  was  pregnant  with  events  so  mo- 
mentous that  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  words  which  could 
describe  them,  or  rhetoric  which  could  exaggerate  them. 
Problems  had  long  been  ripe  for  solution  which  concerned 
not  only  the  British  kingdom,  but  all  the  civilized,  and  al- 
most the  whole  of  the  inhabited,  world.  Whether  France 
or  England  was  to  rule  in  India ;  whether  the  French  man- 


think  it  keeps  him  under  in  the  House  of  Commons.     They  cannot  keep 
him  under.     Mix  liquors  together,  and  the  spirit  will  be  uppermost.' " 

2 


18  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

ners,  language,  and  institutions,  or  the  English,  were  to  pre- 
vail over  the  immense  continent  of  North  America  ;  whether 
Germany  was  to  have  a  national  existence;  whether  Spain 
was  to  monopolize  the  commerce  of  the  tropics ;  who  was 
to  command  the  ocean ;  who  was  to  be  dominant  in  the  isl- 
ands of  the  Caribbean  Sea ;  what  power  was  to  possess  the 
choice  stands  for  business  in  the  great  market  of  the  globe : 
these  were  only  some  among  the  issues  which  had  to  be  de- 
cided during  the  period  when  Fox  and  Pitt  were  in  the 
prime  of  their  vigor  and  at  the  summit  of  their  fame. 

On  the  18th  of  May,  1756,  the  unofficial  hostilities  between 
France  and  England,  which  had  been  smouldering  or  blazing 
for  the  space  of  four  years  on  the  shores  of  the  Carnatic, 
and  along  the  valleys  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  Ohio,  and  the 
Mississippi,  were  sanctioned  and  extended  by  an  open  dec- 
laration of  war — a  war  destined  to  be  the  most  profitable 
and  the  most  glorious  that  this  country  ever  waged.  As  is 
usual,  however,  with  our  glorious  wars,  the  earlier  operations 
brought  us  nothing  but  disaster  and  disgrace.  Byng's  un- 
happy blunder,  and  the  loss  of  Minorca,  wThich  was  to  our 
ancestors  what  Malta  is  to  us,  had  given  rise  to  an  uneasy 
feeling  that  our  navy  was  not  to  be  relied  on.  For  the  first 
time  since  the  Dutch  were  in  the  Medway,  that  humiliating 
misgiving  took  firm  hold  of  the  public  imagination ;  and,  as 
an  inevitable  consequence,  came  the  terrors  of  a  possible  in- 
vasion. The  English  people  were  in  that  state  of  fury  and 
suspicion  which  no  rulers  dare  face  except  such  as  are  ren- 
dered fearless  by  the  consciousness  of  integrity,  and  the  de- 
termination to  do  their  duty  for  duty's  sake.1  The  whole 
herd  of  aristocratic  jobbers  and  political  adventurers  were 
eager  to  throw  upon  each  other  the  responsibility  of  defend- 
ing the  nation  over  whose  plunder,  in  quiet  years,  they  were 
never  weary  of  squabbling.  Scared  by  the  first  mutter  of 
the   storm,  Newcastle    ran    whimpering   to    Granville,  and 

1  When  the  invasion  was  first  talked  of,  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  was  told 
that  the  people  wished  to  see  him  at  the  head  of  the  army.  "  I  do  not  be- 
lieve," was  his  fine  answer,  "  that  the  command  will  be  offered  to  me,  but 
when  no  wise  man  would  accept  it  and  no  honest  man  would  refuse  it." 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  19 

begged  him  to  accept  the  Treasury.  "  I  thought,"  said  Gran- 
ville, "  I  had  cured  you  of  such  offers.  I  will  be  hanged  a 
little  before  I  take  your  place,  rather  than  a  little  after."  Fox 
carried  his  woes  to  the  same  quarter,  and,  forgetful  for  a  mo- 
ment that  he  was  talking  to  the  shrewdest  observer  within  a 
mile  of  St.  James's,  set  down  his  pusillanimity  to  the  score 
of  his  unambitious  temper.  "Fox,"  said  Lord  Granville,  "I 
don't  love  to  have  you  say  things  that  will  not  be  believed. 
If  you  was  of  my  age,  very  well.  I  have  put  on  my  night- 
cap, but  you  should  be  ambitious.  I  want  to  instil  a  nobler 
ambition  into  you ;  to  make  you  knock  the  heads  of  the 
kings  of  Europe  together,  and  jumble  something  out  of  it 
that  may  be  of  service  to  the  country."  But  there  was  no 
chord  in  Fox's  nature  which  responded  to  such  exhortations, 
and,  at  a  crisis  when  the  English  secretary  of  state  might 
have  been  more  powerful  than  the  King  of  France  and  as 
celebrated  as  Frederic  of  Prussia,  he  could  think  of  no  bolder 
course  than  to  resign  the  seals.  The  largest  bribes  that  even 
Newcastle  had  ever  offered  were  pressed  upon  Murray,  and 
pressed  in  vain,  if  only  he  would  consent  to  stand  during  a 
single  session,  or  at  least  during  a  single  debate,  between  an 
incapable  government  and  an  angry  nation  which  had  Pitt 
for  its  champion.  But  Murray  knew  better  than  his  tempter 
how  irresistible  were  the  thunderbolts  of  the  Great  Common- 
er at  a  time  when  the  political  atmosphere  was  in  so  peril- 
ous a  condition  of  electricity.  In  the  calm  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  amidst  the  congenial  labors  of  the  King's  Bench, 
he  waited  with  patient  dignity  till  the  opportunity  came 
when  he  could  repay  the  Earl  of  Chatham  something  of  what 
he  had  endured  at  the  hands  of  William  Pitt. 

The  story  of  the  long  political  crisis  which  agitated  Down- 
ing Street  during  the  first  twelvemonth  of  the  Seven  Years' 
War  is  not  edifying  or  pleasant  reading.  "The  hour," 
wrote  Carlyle,  "is  great;  and  the  honorable  gentlemen,  I 
must  say,  are  small;"  but  they  had  among  them  one  who 
was  equal  to  the  hour.  "Your  country,"  said  Frederic  to 
our  envoy  at  Berlin,  "has  been  long  in  labor,  and  has  suf- 
fered much ;  but  at  last  she  has  produced  a  man."     Pitt  had , 


20  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

unbounded  confidence  in  himself,  and,  most  fortunately  for 
England,  his  oratory  was  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  purpose 
of  communicating  that  confidence  to  others.  "  Pitt  spoke  to 
raise  himself,"  said  one  who  did  not  altogether  love  him  ;  and 
certainly  his  elevated  and  audacious  eloquence  inspired  all 
who  heard  him  with  a  conviction  that  he  was  endowed  with 
rare  courage  and  decision  at  a  season  when  rare  courage  and 
decision  in  high  quarters  were  worth  twenty  millions  a  year 
to  the  nation.  That  close  connection  between  energy  of 
speech  and  vigor  of  action,  which  is  much  more  common  than 
the  enemies  of  popular  government  are  willing  to  suppose, 
found  in  him  its  most  splendid  exemplification.  Without  a 
moment  of  hesitation,  without  a  twinge  of  diffidence,  he  set 
himself  at  the  head  of  his  countrymen ;  and  they,  placing 
their  blood  and  treasure  at  his  disposal,  believing  all  that  he 
asserted,  paying  all  that  he  demanded,  undertaking  every- 
thing that  he  advised,  followed  him  through  an  unbroken 
course  of  effort  and  victory  with  an  enterprise  and  a  resolu- 
tion worthy  of  his  own.  The  nation  which  lately  had  been 
in  a  panic  because  a  score  of  French  battalions  "were  quar- 
tered between  Brest  and  Dunkirk,  was  soon  paramount  in 
every  corner  of  the  world  into  which  a  British  keel  could 
float  or  a  British  cannon  could  be  dragged.  "  I  shall  burn  all 
my  Greek  and  Latin  books,"  said  Horace  Walpole,  who  had 
in  him  more  of  the  patriot  than  it  was  his  humor  to  admit. 
"  They  are  histories  of  little  people.  The  Romans  never 
conquered  the  world  till  they  had  conquered  three  parts  of 
it,  and  were  three  hundred  years  about  it.  We  subdue  the 
globe  in  three  campaigns ;  and  a  globe,  let  me  tell  you,  as 
big  again  as  it  was  in  their  days."  "  You  would  not  know 
your  country  again,"  he  writes  to  Sir  Horace  Mann  at  Flor- 
ence. "You  left  it  a  private  little  island,  living  upon  its 
means.  You  would  find  it  the  capital  of  the  world ;  St.  James's 
Street  crowded  with  nabobs  and  American  chiefs,  and  Mr. 
Pitt  attended  in  his  Sabine  farm  by  Eastern  monarchs,  wait- 
ing till  the  gout  has  gone  out  of  his  foot  for  an  audience.  I 
shall  be  in  town  to-morrow,  and  perhaps  able  to  wrap  up  and 
send  you  half  a  dozen  French  standards  in  my  postscript." 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  21 

While  the  renown  of  the  great  Englishman  was  spread  over 
three  continents  by  a  series  of  triumphs  vast,  rapid,  and  dur- 
able beyond  any  which  are  related  in  the  pages  of  Curtius  or 
Livy,  at  home  his  empire  was  unbounded,  and  even  undis- 
puted. During  fqur  whole  sessions  his  opponents  never  vent- 
ured to  test  the  opinion  of  Parliament  by  calling  for  a  vote. 
Politics,  said  Walpole.  seemed  to  have  gone  into  winter-quar- 
ters. Charges  of  inconsistency,  of  recklessness,  of  profusion, 
were  disdainfully  cast  aside,  and  ere  long  ceased  to  be  uttered. 
A  flash  of  his  eye,  a  wave  of  his  hand,  a  contemptuous  shrug 
of  his  shoulders,  were  an  adequate  reply  to  speeches  an  hour 
long,  bristling  with  figures  and  quotations.  When  he  thought 
fit  to  break  silence,  every  phrase  had  the  wTeight  of  a  despot's 
edict.  One  fiery  sentence  carried  the  Prussian  subsidy.  An- 
other made  the  House  of  Commons  forget,  in  its  exultation 
at  hearing  how  America  was  to  be  conquered  in  Germany, 
that  almost  on  that  day  year  it  had  been  cheering  Pitt  while 
he  declaimed  against  the  folly  of  a  Hanoverian  war.  Parlia- 
ment was  willing  to  remember  only  what  he  chose;  and  the 
few  orators  from  whom  he  had  anything  to  fear  found  excel- 
lent reasons  for  allowing  his  statements  to  pass  uncriticised. 
A  minister  who  wanted  nothing  for  his  own  share  except  the 
honor  of  serving  his  country  had  ample  means  of  providing 
every  mouth  with  the  sop  which  it  loved  the  best.  Fox  be- 
came paymaster  of  the  forces.  Murray,  in  his  own  province 
as  high-minded  and  public-spirited  as  the  secretary  of  state 
himself,  was  already  absorbed  in  his  thirty  years'  labor  of  ad- 
justing the  ancient  common -law  of  England  to  the  multi- 
farious needs  of  modern  society.  To  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
had  been  allotted  the  uncontrolled  patronage  of  every  office 
in  the  kingdom  which  did  not  affect  the  conduct  of  the  war. 
As  long  as  Pitt  might  appoint  whom  he  liked  to  command  ex- 
peditions, to  defend  fortresses,  and  to  represent  Great  Britain 
in  the  belligerent  courts,  the  whole  army  of  placemen,  from 
tellers  of  the  Exchequer  to  tide-wraiters,  were  welcome  to  carry 
their  hopes  and  their  homage  to  the  old  intriguer,  who  could 
not  endure  that  any  one  besides  himself  should  be  the  dictator 
of  the  backstairs  and  the  antechamber.    The  Great  Common- 


22  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

er  might  work  his  will  upon  France  and  Austria  without  a 
whisper  of  interference,  while  Newcastle  was  making  parti- 
sans, while  Mansfield  was  .making  law,  and  while  Fox  was 
making  money. 

He  made  money  to  his  heart's  content.  .  Pitt,  when  at  the 
Pay-office,  had  magnanimously  refused  to  follow  the  exam- 
ple of  his  predecessors  and  enrich  himself  by  trading  with 
the  national  funds  which  were  in  his  custody ;  but  Henry  Fox 
was  not  the  man  to  forego  his  legal  privileges  from  any  quix- 
otic notions  of  principle  or  nicety.  It  was  enough  for  him  if 
he  kept  on  the  safe  side  of  a  parliamentary  impeachment.. 
The  years  during  which  he  had  been  secretary  at  war  were 
long  remembered  by  army  agents  and  contractors  as  a  golden 
age  of  peculation  ;  and  he  now  saw  before  him  a  prospect  of 
secure  and  almost  boundless  gain.  He  was  in  a  position  to 
take  full  advantage  of  the  favorable  condition  of  the  money- 
market.  Half  the  brokers  in  Lombard  Street  were  discount- 
ing bills  at  a  war  rate  of  interest  with  cash  supplied  to  them 
out  of  the  public  balances,  at  a  time  when  those  balances  had 
been  swollen  to  an  unprecedented  amount  by  the  loans  and 
taxes  that  went  to  feed  a  contest  which  embraced  the  world. 
Every  new  regiment  that  was  mustered  ;  every  fresh  ship  that 
was  in  commission ;  every  additional  ally  who  applied  for  a 
subsidy ;  every  captured  province  or  colony  which  had  to  be 
provided  with  a  staff  of  salaried  administrators,  brought  grist 
to  the  mill  of  the  paymaster.  Intent  upon  heaping  up  a  co- 
lossal fortune,  which  his  sons  were  to  dissipate  even  more 
quickly  than  he  had  amassed  it,  he  tamely  consented  to  aban- 
don everything  which  makes  ambition  honorable  and  self- 
seeking  respectable.  He  sank  from  a  cabinet  minister  into 
an  underling,  and  from  the  spokesman  of  a  government  into 
the  mute  occupant  of  a  remote  corner  of  the  Treasury  bench. 
Pich  and  inglorious,  he  played  Crassus  to  his  rival's  Caesar, 
until  an  unexpected  turn  in  politics  tempted  him  to  quit  that 
comfortable  obscurity  from  which  it  would  have  been  well 
for  his  memory  if  he  had  never  emerged.1 

1  The  extent  of  Lord  Holland's  gains  may  be  estimated  by  a  compari- 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  23 

The  death  of  George  the  Second  was  the  signal  for  a  trans- 
(  formation  of  the  government  as  complete,  if  not  as  sudden,  as 
any  which  could  have  occurred  at  Constantinople  or  St.  Peters- 
burg. The  strong  narrow  mind  of  the  young  monarch,  which 
soon  learned  to  work  in  its  own  direction,  as  long  as  it  con- 
tinued to  work  at  all,  was  first  set  in  motion  by  the  external 
(^  influence  of  a  favorite.  Lord  Bute,  the  groom  of  the  stole, 
who  stood  highest  in  the  graces  both  of  the  princess  royal 
and  her  son,  regarded  Pitt  as  aspiring  mediocrity  will  always 
regard  born  greatness,  and  had  taught  his  royal  pupil  to  dis- 
like and  distrust  the  noblest  subject  that  King  of  England 
ever  had.  The  invincible  loyalty  of  the  secretary  of  state 
kept  him  at  his  post  for  a  year  after  his  authority  had  begun 
to  decline ;  but  in  October,  1761,  Bute  enjoyed  the  satisfaction 
of  being  congratulated  on  the  fall  of  the  eminent  man  whom 
he  had  the  impertinence  to  envy.  Lord  Melcombe,  the  un- 
savory associations  of  whose  career  are  more  readily  recalled 
by  his  earlier  designation  of  Bubb  Dodington,  had  been 
tempted  forth  by  the  genial  sunshine  of  the  new  reign  to  flut- 
ter feebly  for  a  short  season  ground  his  ancient  haunts.  "  I 
sincerely  wish  your  lordship  joy,"  he  writes  in  a  letter  which 
is  among  the  gems  of  the  Bute  correspondence,  "  of  being  de- 
livered of  a  most  impracticable  colleague,  his  Majesty  of  a 
most  imperious  servant,  and  the  country  of  a  most  dangerous 
minister.    I  am  told  that  the  people  are  sullen  about  it."    It 


son  between  his  financial  position  when  he  took  the  Pay-office  and  when 
he  quitted  it.  In  the  will  which  he  made  in  middle  life  he  left  eight 
thousand  pounds,  and  eleven  hundred  a  year  to  his  wife.  At  his  death, 
in  1774,  he  left  Lady  Holland  two  thousand  a  year,  Holland  House,  and 
government  securities  to  the  amount,  it  is  said,  of  a  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  pounds.  To  Stephen  Fox  he  had  already  given  between  four 
and  five  thousand  a  year  in  land.  To  Charles  he  bequeathed  the  prop- 
erty in  Kent,  and  nine  hundred  a  year ;  to  his  son  Henry  an  estate  in  the 
North, and  five  hundred  a  year;  while  the  young  men  got  among  them 
fifty  thousand  pounds  in  money,  and  a  sinecure  valued  at  twenty-three 
hundred  a  year.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Lord  Holland  had  already 
paid  for  the  two  eldest  at  least  a  couple  of  hundred  thousand  pounds  of 
debts. 


24-  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF.  [Chap.  I. 

was  Pitt's  misfortune  that  his  extraordinary  achievements 
were  accomplished  at  a  period  when  the  poetry  of  our  nation 
was  at  its  lowest  ebb.  The  pen  of  Churchill,  who  was  his 
sincere  admirer,  was  never  potent  except  when  dipped  in  gall;1 
and  to  be  sung  by  the  Whiteheads  was  a  more  serious  calam- 
ity than  to  be  libelled  by  Wilkes.  In  default  of  the  praise  of 
writers  whose  praise  was  worth  having,  it  was  something  to 
be  made  the  object  of  Bubb  Dodington's  abuse.  No  direct 
panegyric  could  tell  more  in  Pitt's  favor  than  the  ill-will  with 
which  the  most  notorious  of  court  sycophants  and  Treasury 
leeches  honored  the  minister  who  had  long  been  the  bane  of 
all  his  tribe. 

In  the  course  of  the  ensuing  summer,  Newcastle  was  bullied 
*  into  resigning  the  Treasury,  and  Bute  became  prime-minister. 
The  first  act  of  his  administration  was  to  put  an  end  to  hos- 
tilities.    On  the  third  of  November,  1762,  the  Duke  of  Bed- 
ford and  the  Due  de  Nivernois  signed  the  preliminaries  of 
peace  at  Fontainebleau.    The  conditions  were  not  those  which 
England  had  a  right  to  demand  as  the  outcome  of  such  a  war ; 
but  if  Bute  had  been  allowed  his  own  way  in  the  cabinet,  she 
would  have  had  even  less  cause  to  look  back  with  compla- 
cency upon  her  long  roll  of  sacrifices  and  successes.    Our  peo- 
Pple  already  detested  the  prime-minister  as  a  Scotchman  who 
]  rode  rough-shod  over  Englishmen,  and  as  an  upstart  who  had 
/  displaced  his  betters ; 2  -  and  they  were  now  excited  to  fury  by 
/   the  belief  that  he  had  made  use  of  a  position  which  he  never 
v   could  have  won  in  fair  political  fight  to  barter  away  the  good 


1  It  is  pitiable  to  compare  with  the  native  vigor  of  Churchill's  attacks 
upon  the  Earl  of  Sandwich  and  Lord  Holland  the  bathos  which  degrades 
his  attempt  to  exalt  Chatham : 

"  Though  scandal  would  our  patriot's  name  impeach, 
And  rails  at  virtue  which  she  cannot  reach, 
What  honest  man  but  would  with  joy  submit 
To  bleed  with  Cato  and  retire  with  Pitt  ?" 
"  Bute  became  prime-minister  at  the  end  of  May.    On  the  twentieth  of 
June  Walpole  writes,  "  The  new  administration  begins  tempestuously. 
My  father  was  not  more  abused  after  twenty  years  than  Lord  Bute  is  in 
twenty  days." 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  25 

faith  of  the  nation.  They  had  been  proud  of  their  share 
in  the  Continental  war.  It  was  largely  due  to  them  that 
Frederic  had  been  able  to  make  head  against  the  gigantic 
coalition  which  threatened  his  destruction,  and  they  keenly 
felt  the  disgrace  of  having  deserted  him  before  the  close  of 
his  immortal  struggle.  It  was  said  that  this  minion  from 
north  of  Tweed,  not  content  with  supplanting  the  greatest  of 
English  statesmen,  had  betrayed  a  foreign  ruler  whose  alliance 
was  an  honor  to  the  whole  community.  The  public  resent- 
ment was  sharpened  by  a  report  that  the  prime-minister  en- 
tertained a  grudge  against  Frederic  on  the  score  of  an  epi- 
gram which,  in  his  character  of  an  indiscreet  man  of  letters, 
that  monarch  had  levelled  against  the  Scotch — a  rumor  not 
very  credible  with  regard  to  the  friend  and  brother-soldier  of 
the  Keiths.  So  odious  was  the  peace  that  Bute's  conduct  was 
generally  attributed  to  the  basest  of  all  motives.  A  notion 
that  his  pockets  were  full  of  louis-d'ors  was  current,  not  only 
with  the  populace,  but  among  men  of  sense  and  position  who 
ought  to  have  taken  the  trouble  to  make  themselves  better  in- 
formed ;  and  the  vulgar  suspicion  was  carried  to  such  a  pitch 
that  an  imputation  of  corruption  was  extended  to  the  Duke 
of  Bedford,  who,  if  it  had  come  to  bribing,  might,  without 
sensibly  feeling  the  loss,  have  bought  up  out  of  his  private 
fortune  the  French  plenipotentiary,  with  Madame  Pompadour 
to  boot. 

False  or  true,  the  charges  had  to  be  met,  and  an  approval  of 
the  preliminaries  extorted  from  Parliament.  Bute  had  noth- 
ing to  fear  from  the  House  of  Lords ;  but  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, ill  as  it  represented  the  nation,  was  drawn  from  the 
classes  who  create  and  share  public  opinion,  and  was  accessi- 
ble to  the  spell  of  Pitt's  genius.  The  time  had  come  for 
employing  every  species  of  influence,  honorable,  questionable, 
and  discreditable,  which  the  government  had  in  store.  Money 
and  intimidation  might  carry  the  day,  if  only  the  cabinet 
could  secure  the  services  of  a  skilful  speaker.  It  was  essen- 
tial for  success  that  a  case  should  be  made  out  plausible  enough 
to  afford  members  a  pretext  for  voting  against  the  wishes  and 
convictions  of  the  nation.    The  emergency  demanded  a  leader 


26  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

of  undaunted  courage  and  long  parliamentary  experience,  with 
a  tongue  in  his  head,  and  without  a  scruple  in  his  conscience. 
Such  a  man  was  not  easily  to  be  found.     Sir  Francis  Dash- 
wood,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  was  as  poor  a  creat- 
ure as  ever  held  high  office,  with  nothing  to  recommend  him 
except  the  reputation  for  cleverness  which  usually  attaches  to 
a  libertine;  Charles  Townshend  had  upon  him  the  curse  of 
Reuben ; •  and  George  Grenville  was  too  little  of  an  orator 
for  one  part  of  the  work  which  had  to  be  done,  and  not  enough 
of  a  reprobate  for  the  other.     The  king  measured  the  situa- 
I  tion  accurately.     "  We  must  call  in  bad  men,"  he  said,  "  to 
\   govern  bad  men,"  and,  in  his  despair,  he  turned  to  Fox.    The 
|  paymaster,  who  had  got  everything  .that  he  wanted  except  a 
j    peerage,  and  who  hated  the  long  hours  of  the  House  of  Com- 
,  mons,  was  very  unwilling  to  incur  trouble  and  unpopularity 
/  in  defence  of  a  minister  whom  he  would  have  seen  on  his 
V_way  to  Tower  Hill  with  the  most  perfect  indifference.    But  a 
statesman  in  the  long  run  must  yield  to  royal  solicitations, 
if  he  can  give  no  better  ground  for  resisting  than  his  own 
laziness  and  satiety.2     Fox  entered  the  cabinet,  and  assured 
the  king  that  Parliament  should  approve  the  peace  by  as 
large  a  majority  as  his  Majesty  could  possibly  desire. 

1  In  a  very  curious  paper  addressed  to  Lord  Bute,  dated  March,  1763, 
Fox  writes,  "  I  have  said  nothing  of  Charles  Townshend.  He  must  be 
left  to  that  worst  enemy,  himself;  care  only  being  taken  that  no  agreea- 
bleness,  no  wit,  no  zealous  and  clever  behavior,  ever  betray  you  into  trust- 
ing him  for  half  an  hour."  Sir  Francis  Dashwood  is  justly  described  by 
Wilkes  as  one  who,  "from  puzzling  all  his  life  at  tavern  bills,  was  called 
by  Lord  Bute  to  administer  the  finances  of  a  kingdom  above  one  hundred 
millions  in  debt." 

3  "I  cannot  be  minister,"  so  Fox  wrote  in  the  year  1756,  "without  be- 
ing the  prime-minister.  I  am  not  capable  of  it.  Richelieu,  were  he 
alive,  could  not  guide  the  councils  of  a  nation,  if  he  could  not,  from  No- 
vember to  April,  have  above  two  hours  in  four-and-twenty  to  think  of 
anything  but  the  House  of  Commons."  That  Fox  was  far  from  eager  to 
undertake  the  lead  in  1762  is  incontestably  shown  by  Lord  Edmund 
Fitzmaurice  in  his  "Life  of  Lord  Shelburne" — a  work  which  has  done 
much  to  clear  up  the  disputed  points  and  to  vivify  the  lay  figures  of  po- 
litical history.  In  volume  ii.,  page  180,  there  is  the  prettiest  story  that 
ever  was  told. 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  27 

There  was  no  time  to  be  lost.  The  new  leader  was  hardly 
in  his  saddle  by  the  beginning  of  November,  and  it  was  nec- 
essary that  the  victory  should  be  secured  before  the  House 
^-adjourned  for  the  Christmas  holidays.  Fox  possessed  all  the 
qualities  which  could  command  success  in  such  an  undertak- 
ing— perverted  ability,  impudence,  cynicism,  misdirected  cour- 
age, an  unequalled  knowledge  of  all  that  was  worst  in  human 
nature  and  least  admirable  in  human  affairs.  No  cupidity  was 
left  untempted,  no  fear  or  foible  unplayed  on,  no  stone  un- 
turned beneath  which  one  of  the  creeping  things  of  politics 
might  chance  to  be  lying.  Every  office-holder  in  Parliament 
was  given  to  understand  that  his  place  depended  upon  his 
vote ;  and  every  office-seeker  got  a  promise  that,  when  the 
battle  was  won,  he  should  have  his  share  in  the  spoils,  and 
should  step  into  some  post  of  dignity  and  emolument  from 
which  an  honester  man  than  himself  had  been  expelled.  Mon- 
ey flowed  like  water ;  and  any  honorable  gentleman  who  was 
too  proud  to  pocket  a  bank-note  had  almost  unlimited  choice 
as  to  the  form  of  bargain  under  which  he  preferred  to  sell 
himself.  The  terms  of  one,  at  least,  among  these  negotiations 
still  remain  on  paper.  Fox  appears  to  have  evinced  his  re- 
spect for  the  memory  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  by  expending  a 
quite  exceptional  amount  of  delicacy  over  the  business  of 
buying  his  old  leader's  grandson.  Approaching  Lord  Orford 
through  his  uncle  Horace,  he  offered  him  the  rangership  of 
the  London  parks,  which  he  estimated  at  more  than  two  thou- 
sand pounds  a  year.  "  Such  an  income,"  he  wrote,  "  might,  if 
not  prevent,  at  least  procrastinate  your  nephew's  ruin.  I  find 
nobody  knows  his  lordship's  thoughts  on  the  present  state  of 
politics.  Now,  are  you  willing,  and  are  you  the  proper  person, 
to  tell  Lord  Orford  that  I  will  do  my  best  to  procure  this  em- 
ployment for  him  if  I  can  soon  learn  that  he  desires  it?  If  he 
does  choose  it,  I  doubt  not  of  his  and  his  friend  Boone's  hearty 
assistance ;  and  I  believe  I  shall  see  you,  too,  much  oftener  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  This  is  offering  you  a  bribe,  but  'tis 
such  a  one  as  one  honest  good-natured  man  may  without  of- 
fence offer  to  another."  It  may  well  be  imagined  that  a  search 
among  the  archives  of  our  old  country-seats  might  bring  to 


28  THE  EARLY    HISTOEY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

light  a  curious  collection  of  documents,  signed  "  Henry  Fox," 
and  dated  in  November,  1762,  when  it  is  recollected  that  the 
letter  quoted  above  was  addressed  to  one  who,  in  spite  of  cer- 
tain faults  of  character,  was  known  far  and  wide  as  a  man  of 
strict  honor  and  a  most  independent  politician. 

When  Parliament  met,  it  was  at  once  evident  that  Fox  had 
got  value  for  his  money.  A  motion  for  delay  was  defeated 
by  two  hundred  and  thirteen  votes  to  seventy-four,  and  an 
address  approving  the  peace  was  carried  by  three  hundred  and 
nineteen  votes  to  sixt}^-five.  The  fight  was  over,  and  the 
butchery  began.  Every  one  who  belonged  to  the  beaten 
party  was  sacrificed  without  mercy,  with  all  his  kindred  and 
dependents;  and  those  public  officers  who  were  unlucky 
enough  to  have  no  political  connections  fared  as  ill  as  the 
civil  population  of  a  district  which  is  the  seat  of  war  between 
two  contending  armies.  Clerks,  messengers,  excisemen,  coast- 
guardsmen,  and  pensioners  were  ruined  by  shoals  because  they 
had  no  vote  for  a  member  of  Parliament,  or  because  they  had 
supported  a  member  who  had  opposed  the  peace.  An  inqui- 
sition was  held  into  the  antecedents  of  every  man,  woman,  or 
child  who  subsisted  on  public  money ;  and  it  was  said  that  a 
noted  political  lady,  ambitious  of  emulating  the  exploits  of 
Fulvia  in  the  second  triumvirate,  had  volunteered  to  bring 
her  feminine  acuteness  to  the  aid  of  the  committee  of  pro- 
scription. The  old  servants  and  poor  relations  of  peers  who 
had  refused  to  abandon  Pitt  were  hunted  from  their  employ- 
ments, and  thrown  back  on  the  world  without  regard  to  age 
or  sex  or  merit.  But,  to  do  the  ministers  justice,  they  had 
,no  respect  of  persons.  They  struck  high  and  low  with  un- 
flinching impartiality.  No  class  fared  worse  than  the  Whig 
'magnates  to  whom  and  to  whose  fathers  George  the  Third 
owed  his  throne.  Forgetting,  what  even  the  despots  of  Web- 
ster's ghastly  dramas  remembered,  that 

M  Princes  give  rewards  with  their  own  hands, 
But  death  and  punishment  by  the  hands  of  others," 

the  king,  with  his  own  pen,  dashed  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's- 
name  off  the  list  of  privy-councillors — an  act  of  evil  omen, 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  #  29 

"  dipped,"  said  Walpole, "  in  a  deeper  dye  than  I  like  in  poli- 
tics." The  lovers  of  liberty  and  order  perceived  with  dismay 
that  their  monarch  was  at  heart  a  Stuart.  "  Strip  the  Duke 
of  Newcastle  of  his  three  lieutenancies,"  wrote  Fox.    "  Then 

^^  go  on  to  the  general  rout,  but  let  this  beginning  be  made  im- 
mediately." On  the  same  day  that  the  veteran  ex-minister 
was  thus  rewarded  for  his  services  to  the  House  of  Hanover, 
two  young  noblemen  who  before  long  were  to  occupy  con- 
spicuous stations,  the  Duke  of  Grafton  and  the  Marquis  of 

I  Rockingham,  were  summarily  dismissed  from  the  lord-lieu- 
tenancies of  their  respective  counties.  The  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire, with  proper  spirit,  insisted  on  sharing  the  honorable 
disgrace  of  his  friends,  and  placed  the  Lord -lieutenancy  of 
Derbyshire  at  the  disposal  of  the  government.  Every  post 
where  a  Whig  had  been  drawing  salary  or  exercising  author- 
ity was  now  filled  by  a  young  Tory  or  an  old  Jacobite.  It 
was  said  in  the  newspapers  that  Bute  had  turned  out  every- 
/body  whom  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  had  helped  to  bring  in, 
except  the  king. 

Whenever  his  cold-blooded  rigor  flagged,  Fox  was  hounded 
on  to  his  prey  by  his  relentless  and  rapacious  colleagues.  "  Be- 
fore another  question  comes,"  said  Lord  Shelburne,  "  let  the 
two  hundred  and  thirteen  taste  some  of  the  plunder  of  the 
seventy-four."     Bute,  paraphrasing  in  a  clumsy  sentence  the 

f  concise  wish  of  the  Roman  tyrant,  expressed  a  hope  that 
"  everything  the  king  detests  will  be  gathered  into  one  osten- 
sible heap,  and  formed  either  to  be  destroyed  by  him,  or,  by 
getting  the  better,  to  lead  him  in  chains."  Rigby,  the  worst 
of  the  graceless  clique  who  lived  upon  the  Duke  of  Bedford's 
influence  and  reputation,  boasted  to  his  patron  of  the  share 
which  he  had  in  encouraging  Fox  to  make  a  clean  sweep  of 
the  public  offices.  The  court  was  beside  itself  with  glee ;  and 
the  princess  royal,  glad  at  heart  for  Bute,  but  affecting  to  re- 
joice because  her  son  was  at  length  king  in  fact  as  well  as  in 
name,  led  the  chorus  of  jubilation.  She  had  a  right  to  triumph. 
A  woman's  favor  and  a  stripling's  whim  had  proved  strong 
enough  to  balk  the  wishes  of  a  nation ;  for  the  people,  and 
especially  the  Londoners,  to  whom  Pitt  was  dearer  than  ever, 


30  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  I. 

did  not  by  any  means  participate  in  the  satisfaction  of  their 
rulers.  The  gratitude  and  affection  with  which  the  city  con- 
tinued to  regard  the  man  who  had  made  it  the  first  capital  in 
the  world  seemed  equally  criminal  and  contemptible  in  the 
eyes  of  those  who,  for  England's  sins,  were  now  her  masters. 
Rigby,  who  had  never  been  loyal  to  anything  but  his  bread 
and  butter,  recommended  the  Common  Council,  now  that  Pitt's 
cause  was  irretrievably  lost,  to  throw  over  their  idol,  and  fall 
to  their  proper  business  of  lighting  their  lamps  and  flushing 
their  sewers;  and  the  prime-minister  could  at  length  sneer 
with  impunity  at  "  the  city's  darling,"  an  epithet  which 
doubtless  seemed  infinitely  ridiculous  to  the  luckiest  of  royal 
minions. 

To  the  chief  of  this  crew  retribution  was  not  long  in  com- 
ing. Fox  had  abandoned  the  men  with  whom  he  had  acted 
for  fi  ve-and-twenty  years,  in  order  to  place  himself  at  the  head 
of  a  faction  which  hated  him  as  politicians  in  all  times  and 
all  countries  hate  those  who  differ  from  them  about  a  ques- 
tion of  disputed  succession  to  the  throne.  The  injuries  and 
affronts  which  he  had  inflicted  upon  those  who  once  had  been 
his  allies  had  cut  him  off  from  any  chance  of  reconciliation 
with  his  former  party.  The  Whigs,  whom  he  had  evicted  and 
insulted ;  the  Jacobites,  who  had  always  regarded  his  family 
as  a  tribe  of  renegades ;  the  lawyers,  wrhom  he  had  so  often 
beaten  at  their  own  weapons ;  his  very  mercenaries,  who,  now 
that  they  had  fulfilled  their  part  of  the  bargain  by  voting  for 
the  peace,  were  in  a  hurry  to  prove  to  their  seducer  that  they 
no  longer  considered  themselves  in  his  debt — one  and  all  vied 
with  each  other  in  harassing  and  humiliating  their  common 
enemy.  One  day  there  was  a  motion  for  inquiry  into  the  ac- 
counts of  the  Pay-office,  and  the  names  of  four  members  who 
were  known  to  be  in  his  confidence  were  ostentatiously  struck 
off  the  list  of  the  proposed  committee.  On  another  occasion 
the  House  of  Commons  pretended  to  suspect  that  its  leader 
had  forged  the  names  which  were  attached  to  a  trumpery  pe- 
tition. When,  after  reiterated  provocations,  he  showed  signs 
of  temper,  he  was  treated  to  a  lecture  by  one  of  Pitt's  parti- 
sans, who  desired  him,  for  the  credit  of  his  position,  to  save 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  31 

appearances.  "  It  is  not  my  habit,"  lie  replied, "  to  mind  ap- 
pearances, but  realities."  His  audience,  catching  at  the  oppor- 
tunity with  ill-natured  adroitnesss,  smothered  the  last  two 
words  of  the  sentence  in  a  shout  of  insolent  laughter ;  and 
Fox,  as  he  sat  down,  declared,  in  the  bitterness  of  his  heart, 
that  no  man  in  his  situation  had  ever  been  so  used  before. 
The  most  unforgiving  and  ingenious  of  his  victims  could 
not  have  invented  for  him  a  more  appropriate  punishment 
than  the  task  of  guiding  the  deliberations  of  an  assembly 
whose  respect  he  had  forfeited  and  whose  regard  he  had 
never  possessed. 

His  only  object  now  was  to  withdraw  from  his  uneasy  pre- 
eminence, and  to  carry  into  his  retreat  as  much  booty  as  he 
could  contrive  to  pack.  Loaded  with  sinecures  and  reversions 
for  himself  and  his  children,  he  was  still  unsatisfied  unless  he 
could  obtain  his  peerage  without  losing  his  paymastership. 
It  may  well  be  believed  that  the  aspirants  whom  he  left  be- 
hind him  with  their  fortunes  still  unmade  were  not  pleased 
at  seeing  a  prize  of  five-and-twenty  thousand  a  year  carried 
out  of  the  ring ;  and,  before  the  matter  could  be  settled,  Fox 
and  Shelburne  were  involved  in  an  ignoble  and  tortuous  al- 
tercation which  ruined  anything  that  remained  of  the  elder 
statesman's  good  fame,  and  hampered  the  younger  with  a  rep- 
utation for  duplicity  from  which  he  was  never  able  to  shake 
himself  free.  Fox  may  be  said  to  have  won  the  last  of  his 
fights ;  for  he  became  Lord  Holland,  kept  the  Pay-office,  and 
got  the  credit  of  having  made  the  best  known  of  political  rep- 
artees ;*  while  Shelbiwne  gained  nothing  by  the  business  ex- 
cept a  nickname.  But  there  were  many  to  whom  the  quarrel 
served  as  a  pretext  for  turning  against  a  man  who  hencefor- 
ward would  have  nothing  to  give ;  and  Fox,  if  he  did  not 
know  it  before,  now  learned  what  the  friendship  of  self-inter- 
ested men  was  worth.  Calcraf  t,  his  creature  and  cousin,  whom 
he  had  raised  to  vast  opulence  from  a  clerkship  of  forty  pounds 


1  Lord  Bute  had  endeavored  to  do  his  best  for  Shelburne  by  charac- 
terizing the  affair  as  "  a  pious  fraud."  "  I  can  see  the  fraud  plain  enough," 
said  Fox ;  "  but  where  is  the  piety  ?" 


32  THE  EARLY  HISTORY"  OF  [Chap.  I. 

a  year,  was  Shelburne's  most  active  partisan  in  the  controver- 
sy ;  and  when  Fox,  relying  on  the  tender  recollections  of  a 
hundred  jobs  which  they  had  perpetrated  in  common,  ap- 
pealed to  Rigby  for  sympathy  and  advice,  his  confidences 
were  rejected  with  a  brutality  which,  if  they  had  been 
younger  men,  could  only  have  been  expiated  at  the  sword- 
point.1 

Up  to  November,  1762,  Fox  had  passed  for  .a  sharp,  self- 
seeking  politician,  formidable  in  debate  and  still  more  for- 
midable in  intrigue,  who  would  recoil  from  nothing  to  gain 
his  ends,  but  who  was  no  worse  at  bottom  than  most  of  the 
people  by  whom  he  was  surrounded.  No  one  expected  him 
to  prefer  the  advantage  of  the  State  to  his  own ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  no  one  accused  him  of  having  ill-used  any  indi- 
vidual who  did  not  stand  in  the  way  of  his  personal  profit 
and  advancement.  When  once  his  exorbitant  appetite  was  in 
course  of  being  gratified,  he  was  not  the  man  to  grudge  others 
their  share.  He  was  accounted  as  one  who  made  it  his  rule 
to  live  and  let  live  on  the  public,  to  stick  by  those  who  had 
stuck  by  him,  and  to  observe  the  laws  of  that  honor  which 
proverbially  exists  among  the  class  to  which  so  many  place- 
men of  his  day  belonged.  Nobody  thought  well  of  him  ex- 
cept his  wife,  his  children,  and  his  servants ;  but  not  a  few 
had  a  kindly  feeling  towards  him,  and  liked  him  the  better 
for  his  disclaiming  any  pretence  to  a  virtue  of  which,  after 
all,  he  was  not  more  devoid  than  some  of  his  seemlier  com- 
petitors. 

But  the  ^ve  months  which  Henry  Fox  spent  in  Bute's  cab- 
inet entirely  reversed  the  opinion  entertained  of  him  by  his 
equals,  and  undid  him  in  the  estimation  of  his  countrymen  at 
large.  He  had  not  played  fair.  He  had  broken  the  rules  of 
the  game.     He  had  deserted  his  comrades,  and  had  attacked 

1  Fox  met  Rigby's  chariot  in  St.  James's  Street,  and,  leaning  over  the 
door,  began  to  abuse  Shelburne  as  "  a  perfidious  and  infamous  liar." 
"You  tell  your  story  of  Shelburne,"  rejoined  the  other.  "He  has  a 
damned  one  to  tell  of  you,  and  I  do  not  trouble  myself  which  is  the 
truth;"  and,  pushing  Fox's  elbow  from  the  window," Rigby  ordered  his 
coachman  to  drive  away. 


Chap.  I.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  33 

them  with  an  animosity  which  would  have  been  indecent  if 
directed  against  the  most  inveterate  of  foes.  He  had  cruelly 
wronged  a  multitude  of  humble  people  who  had  hitherto 
been  exempted  from  the  severities  of  party  warfare.  And  all 
this  he  had  apparently  done  in  the  wantonness  of  deliberate 
but  almost  aimless  malice;  without  any  benefit  to  himself 
which  could  compensate  for  a  tithe  of  the  unpopularity  that 
pursued  him  into  his  retirement,  and  attended  him  to  his 
grave.  There  was  no  crime  of  which  the  public  believed  him 
incapable,  and  not  very  many  which  he  was  not  expressly 
charged  with  having  committed.  In  the  political  literature 
of  the  next  eleven  years,  Lord  Holland  supplied  an  unfailing 
synonym  for  tyrant,  incendiary,  and  public  robber.  When- 
ever the  reader  lights  upon  the  title  which  Fox  had  waded 
through  so  much  to  earn,  it  is  ten  to  one  that  within  the  next 
half-dozen  lines  there  will  be  found  an  allusion  to  the  gal- 
lows;1 and,  what  is  more  significant  than  the  direct  vitupera- 
tion with  which  he  was  assailed,  he  is  nowhere  mentioned  in 
terms  of  praise  or  charity  or  even  of  indifference.  Junius, 
his  only  friend  among  the  satirists  who  wrote  between  the 
Peace  of  Paris  and  the  outbreak  of  the  American  war,  proved 
his  good-will  by  abstaining  from  any  reference  to  the  hated 
name.     Mason  branded  Lord  Holland  in  his  smoothest,  and 

1  A  ferocious  libel,  published  originally  under  Churchill's  initials,  with 
much  else  that  affords  desultory  but  not  unprofitable  reading  on  an  idle 
afternoon,  may  be  noticed  in  the  "  Foundling  for  Wit " — a  collection  of 
extracts,  elegant  and  otherwise,  published  in  annual  volumes  between  the 
years  1768  and  1773.  The  ghost  of  a  felon  who  had  lately  died  at  Ty- 
burn for  forging  Lord  Holland's  name  to  a  lease  appears  to  the  paymas- 
ter-general as  he  lies  in  his  bedroom  at  Holland  House, 

"  revolving  future  schemes 
His  country  to  betray." 

The  most  vigorous  lines  read  like  a  horrible  travesty  of  the  last  verse  in 
"  Edwin  and  Angelina." 

"  Not  all  thy  art  or  wealth  can  e'er 
Avert  the  stern  decree ; 
The  same  base  hand  that  stretched  my  neck 
Shall  do  the  same  for  thee." 
3 


34  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  I. 

Churchill  in  his  most  pointed,  verse.1  The  men  of  fashion 
whom  he  had  helped  into  comfortable  places,  and  in  whose 
company  he  had  drunk  whole  cellarfuls  of  claret,  were  at  the 
pains  to  collect,  and  republish  in  a  permanent  shape,  all  the 
savage  lampoons  which  might  inform  posterity  how  univer- 
sally their  old  boon  companion  was  detested.  And  Gray 
summed  up  the  popular  abhorrence  in  stanzas  of  extraordi- 
nary power,  which  describe  the  fallen  statesman,  "  old,  and 
abandoned  by  each  venal  friend,''  as  consumed  by  an  undying 
rancor  against  the  people  of  London  on  account  of  their  fidel- 
ity to  Pitt.3  With  an  energy  such  as  he  nowhere  else  ex- 
pends upon  contemporary  themes,  the  poet  depicts  Lord  Hol- 
land in  his  gloomy  retreat  on  the  bleak  shore  of  the  North 
Foreland,  which  he  had  made  still  more  hideous  with  mimic 
ruins  in  order  to  feed  his  diseased  fancy  with  an  image  of  the 
desolation  to  which  he  would  have  condemned  the  disobedi- 
ent city,  if  only  he  had  met  with  colleagues  bold  enough  to 
carry  out  his  atrocious  designs. 

1  "  Lift  against  virtue  Power's  oppressive  rod ; 

Betray  thy  country,  and  deny  thy  God ; 
And,  in  one  general  comprehensive  line 
To  group  (which  volumes  scarcely  could  define), 
Whate'er  of  sin  and  dulness  can  be  said, 
Join  to  a  Fox's  heart  a  Dashwood's  head." 

Churchill,  Epistle  to  Hogarth. 

3  Gray,  with  an  affectation  unworthy  of  his  powers,  gives  the  title  of  an 
"Impromptu"  to  a  performance  which,  by  its  condensation  of  meaning 
and  lucidity  of  expression,  recalls  the  "  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard." 
Such  lines  as  these  are  not  produced  offhand : 

"  Ah !  said  the  sighing  peer,  had  Bute  been  true, 
Nor  Murray's,  Rigby's,  Bedford's  friendship  vain ; 
Far  better  scenes  than  these  had  blessed  our  view, 
And  realized  the  beauties  which  we  feign. 

"  Purged  by  the  sword,  and  purified  by  fire, 

Then  had  we  seen  proud  London's  hated  walls. 
Owls  would  have  hooted  in  Saint  Peter's  choir, 
And  foxes  stunk  and  littered  in  Saint  Paul's." 


1749-68.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  35 


CHAPTER  II. 

1749-1768. 

Lord  Holland  in  his  own  Family. — Birth  of  Charles  James  Fox. — His 
Childhood. — Wandsworth. — Eton  and  Paris. — Dr.  Barnard. — The  Musae 
Etonenses. — Picture  at  Holland  House. — Lady  Sarah  Lennox. — Fox  at 
Oxford. — Tour  in  Italy. — Fox's  Industry  and  Accomplishments. — His 
Return  to  England. 

Lord  Holland  was  neither  so  wicked  nor  so  unhappy  as 
the  world  supposed  him.  He  had  never  courted  esteem,  and, 
while  his  health  was  still  fairly  good  and  his  nerves  strong,  he 
cared  not  a  farthing  for  popularity.  He  looked  upon  the 
public  as  a  milch-cow,  which  might  bellow  and  toss  its  horns 
as  much  as  ever  it  pleased,  now  that  he  had  filled  his  pail  and 
had  placed  the  gate  between  himself  and  the  animal.  But, 
though  he  had  no  self-respect  to  wound,  he  could  be  touched 
through  his  affection ;  for  this  political  buccaneer,  whose  hand 
had  been  against  every  man  and  in  every  corner  of  the  na- 
tional till,  was  in  private  a  warm-hearted  and  faithful  friend. 
Lord  Holland  cannot  be  called  nice  in  the  choice  of  some 
among  the  objects  on  whom  he  bestowed  his  regard ;  but, 
once  given,  it  never  was  withdrawn.  He  had  attached  him- 
self to  Rigby  with  a  devotion  mo^t  unusual  in  an  intimacy 
made  at  Newmarket,  and  cemented  over  the  bottle;1  and  his 
feelings  were  more  deeply  and  more  permanently  hurt  by  the 
unkindness  of  one  coarse  and  corrupt  adventurer  than  by  the 
contempt  and  aversion  of  every  honest  man  in  the  country 
who  read  the  newspapers.   To  the  end  of  his  life  he  could  not 

1  "  I  dined  at  Holland  House,"  wrote  Rigby  on  one  occasion,  "  where, 
though  I  drank  claret  with  the  master  of  it  from  dinner  till  two  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  I  could  not  wash  away  the  sorrow  he  is  in  at  the  shock- 
ing condition  his  eldest  boy  is  in — a  distemper  they  call  Sanvitoss  dance. 
I  believe  I  spell  it  damnably." 


/ 


36  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  II. 

mention  his  old  associate  without  a  touch  of  pathos  which  has 
its  effect  even  upon  those  whose  reason  inclines  them  to  re- 
gard his  expressions  of  tenderness  as  the  lamentations  of  a 
rogue  who  has  been  jockej^ed  by  his  accomplice.  "  I  loved 
him,"  he  says  to  George  Selwyn ;  "  and  whether  to  feel  or 
not  to  feel  on  such  an  occasion  be  most  worthy  of  a  man,  I 
won't  dispute;  but  the  fact  is  that  I  have  been,  and  still  am, 
whenever  I  think  of  it,  very  unhappy."  Six  years  after  the 
breach  he  was  still  writing  in  the  same  strain.  "  There  is  one 
question  which,  I  hope,  will  not  be  asked — 

'  Has  life  no  sourness,  drawn  so  near  its  end  V 

Indeed  it  has ;  yet  I  guard  against  it  as  much  as  possible,  and 
am  weak  enough  sometimes  to  think  that  if  Kigby  chiefly,  and 
some  others,  had  pleased,  I  should  have  walked  down  the  vale 
of  years  more  easily.  But  it  is  weak  in  me  to  think  so  often 
as  I  do  of  Rigby,  and  you  will  be  ashamed  of  me." 

Whatever  Lord  Holland  suffered  by  the  coldness  and 
treachery  of  the  outside  world  was  amply  made  up  to  him 
within  his  domestic  circle.  As  will  always  be  the  case  with 
a  man  of  strong  intelligence  and  commanding  powers,  who 
has  the  gift  of  forgetting  himself  in  others,  there  was  no  limit 
to  the  attachment  which  he  inspired  and  the  happiness  which 
he  spread  around  him.  In  all  that  he  said  and  wrote,  his  ina- 
bility to  recognize  the  existence  of  public  duty  contrasts  sin- 
gularly with  his  admirable  unconsciousness  that  he  had  any 
claims  whatever  upon  those  whom  he  loved ;  and,  as  a  sure 
result,  he  was  not  more  hated  abroad  than  adored  at  home. 
That  home  presented  a  beautiful  picture  of  undoubting  and 
undoubted  affection ;  of  perfect  similarity  in  tastes  and  pur- 
suits ;  of  mutual  appreciation,  which  thorough  knowledge  of 
the  world,  and  the  strong  sense  inherent  in  the  Fox  character, 
never  allowed  to  degenerate  into  mutual  adulation.  There 
seldom  were  children  who  might  so  easily  have  been  guided 
into  the  straight  and  noble  path,  if  the  father  had  possessed  a 
just  conception  of  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong; 
but  the  notion  of  making  anybody  of  whom  he  was  fond  un- 
comfortable, for  the  sake  of  so  very  doubtful  an  end  as  the 


1749-68.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  37 

attainment  of  self-control,  was  altogether  foreign  to  his  creed 
and  his  disposition.  However,  if  the  sterner  virtues  were 
wanting  among  his  young  people,  the  graces  were  there  in 
abundance.  Never  was  the  natural  man  more  dangerously 
attractive  than  in  Lord  Holland's  family;  and  most  of  all  in 
the  third  son,  a  boy  who  was  the  pride  and  light  of  the  house, 
with  his  sweet  temper,  his  rare  talents,  and  his  inexhaustible 
vivacity.1 

Charles  James  Fox  was  born  on  the  twenty-fourth  January, 
1749.  His  father  was  already  tenant  of  the  suburban  palace 
and  paradise  from  which  he  was  to  derive  his  title ;  but  it  was 
a  work  of  no  small  time  and  labor  to  prepare  the  mansion  for 
its  great  destinies,  and  the  noise  of  carpenters  and  the  bustle 
of  upholsterers  obliged  Lady  Caroline  to  choose  a  lodging  in 
Conduit  Street  for  the  scene  of  an  event  which  would  have 
added  distinction  even  to  Holland  House.2  Holland  House, 
however,  was  the  seat  of  Charles's  boyhood ;  and  his  earliest 
associations  were  connected  with  its  lofty  avenues,  its  trim 
gardens,  its  broad  stretches  of  deep  grass,  its  fantastic  gables, 
its  endless  vista  of  boudoirs,  libraries,  and  drawing-rooms,  each 
more  home-like  and  habitable  than  the  last.  All  who  knew 
him  at  this  stage  of  his  existence  recollected  him  as  at  once  x^S 
the  most  forward  and  the  most  engaging  of  small  creatures. 

1  Lord  Holland  had  four  sons — Stephen,  Henry  (who  died  so  young 
that  well-informed  writers  have  called  Charles  the  second  son),  Charles, 
and  Henry  Edward. 

2  Fox  bought  Holland  House  in  1767.  Up  to  that  date  he  paid  for  the 
property  a  rent  less  than  is  asked  for  five  out  of  six  among  the  hundreds 
of  dwellings  which  now  fringe  its  northern  and  eastern  outskirts,  but 
which  have  not  been  permitted  to  invade  the  sacred  enclosure.  "  It  will 
be  a  great  pity,"  wrote  Scott, "  when  this  ancient  house  must  come  down 
and  give  way  to  rows  and  crescents.  One  is  chiefly  affected  by  the  air  of 
deep  seclusion  which  is  spread  around  the  domain."  This  was  the  limit 
of  what  Sir  "Walter  would  say  in  favor  of  a  building  which  he  was  per- 
haps too  good  a  Tory  to  admire  as  it  deserved.  Walpole,  writing  in  1747, 
says,  "  Mr.  Fox  gave  a  great  ball  last  week  in  Holland  House,  which  he 
has  taken  for  a  long  term,  and  where  he  is  making  great  improvements. 
It  is  a  brave  old  house,  and  belonged  to  the  gallant  Earl  of  Holland,  the 
lover  of  Charles  the  First's  queen." 


38  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  II. 

His  father  worshipped  him  from  the  very  first.  "  Dear  Caro- 
line," he  writes  in  March,  1752,  "  send  me  word  by  the  bearer 
how  my  dear  Charles  does.  Send  John  Walker  to-morrow 
morning  with  another  account,  for  I  propose  shooting,  and 
not  being  in  till  three  or  four.  I  can  do  nothing  in  the  anx- 
iety of  not  hearing  of  him."  On  another  occasion  Henry 
Fox  thus  replies  to  a  complaint  that  he  was  too  much  absorbed 
in  politics  to  please  so  loving  a  wife  and  so  fond  a  mother. 
"  I  am  very  sorry  to  hear  of  poor  dear  Thumb's  being  so  bad 
in  his  cough.  For  God's  sake,  have  the  greatest  attention  for 
him.  If  he  is  ill,  you  will  see  whether  my  state  affairs  make 
me  forget  domestic  affection  or  no.  But  I  pray  God  no  trial 
of  that  kind  may  ever  happen  to  me."  "  I  do  believe,"  he 
says  elsewhere,  "  Ste  has  his  share  of  favor  in  a  proper  way 
for  his  age ;  but  I  suppose  Charles  is  so  continually  at  home, 
and  Ste  so  continually  abroad,  which  must  give  Charles  an  ad- 
vantage with  those  who  stay  at  home.  Don't  be  peevish,  pray, 
with  the  dear  child  for  that,  nor  for  anything  else ;  neither 
will  you  seriously,  I  know ;  for  he  has  made  you  love  him  as 
much  as  all  of  us." 

The  father  might  honestly  repudiate  a  charge  of  favoritism ; 
for  the  love  which  Charles  enjoyed  was  never  at  the  expense 
of  his  brothers.  "  I  got  to  Holland  House,"  wrote  Fox,  "  last 
night  at  seven ;  found  all  the  boys  well ;  but,  to  say  the  truth, 
took  most  notice  of  Charles.  I  never  saw  him  better  or  more 
merry.  Harry  was  just  gone  to  bed  and  fast  asleep.  I  saw 
him  this  morning,  when  he  entered  into  the  conversation  very 
much  by  signs,  but  does  not  speak  a  word."  And  again,  "  I 
rode  to  Holland  House  this  morning,  and  found  Harry  in  his 
nurse's  arms  in  the  park,  looking  very  cold  but  very  well.  I 
called  him  Squeaker.  Pie  looked  at  me  and  laughed,  but,  on 
the  whole,  appeared  to  like  my  horse  better  than  me."  But, 
however  ready  Henry  Fox  might  be  to  pet  and  spoil  the 
others,  it  was  impossible  not  to  be  on  rather  exceptional  terms 
with  a  little  fellow  who  made  himself  a  companion  at  an  age 
when  most  children  are  only  amusing  as  playthings.  "  I  dined 
at  home  to-day  tete-a-tete  with  Charles,"  wrote  the  statesman  to 
his  wife  when  the  boy  was  hardly  three  years  old,  "  intending 


1749-G8.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  39 

to  do  business ;  but  he  has  found  me  pleasanter  employment. 
I  grow  immoderately  fond  of  him."  "  Is  he  my  sensible  child 
still  ?"  he  asks,  in  December,  1754 ;  and  in  a  subsequent  letter 
he  answers  his  own  question  by  describing  his  five-year-old 
son  as  "  very  well,  very  pert,  very  argumentative,"  overflow- 
ing with  good-humor,  and  so  mad  about  the  stage  that  he  was 
reading  every  play  on  which  he  could  lay  his  tiny  hands.  In 
1756,  Charles  had  gone,  as  usual,  to  the  theatre.  "  He  says," 
wrote  Fox  to  Lady  Caroline,  "  he  loves  you  as  well  indeed, 
but  sticks  to  it  that  you  are  not  so  handsome  as  I  am,  and 
therefore  that  he  had  rather  be  like  me;  and  he  was  dis- 
pleased this  morning  when  Miss  Bellamy  found  out,  as  I  al- 
ways do,  his  great  resemblance  to  you."  And,  a  few  days 
later, "  Charles  is  perfectly  well,  and  Mrs.  Farmer  is  therefore 
sorry  that  '  Alexander  the  Great '  was  acted  to-night,  because 
she  wished  him  two  or  three  days  of  confirmed  health  before 
he  ventured.  But  he  is  gone  to  eat  biscuit  there  for  supper, 
and  to  come  the  moment  the  play  is  over  to  take  his  rhubarb. 
Charles  is  now  in  perfect  health  and  spirits  as  it  is  possible 
for  any  animal  to  be.  He  is  all  life,  spirit,  motion,  and  good- 
humor.  He  says  I  look  like  a  villain  though ;  and  is  sure 
everybody  in  the  House  of  Commons  that  don't  know  me 
must  take  me  for  such."  Better  testimony  to  his  marvellous 
but  not  ungraceful  precocity  than  the  admiration  of  an  in- 
dulgent father  is  given  by  Charles  Fox  himself,  who  remem- 
bered being  present  in  the  room  when  his  mother  made  a  de- 
sponding remark  about  his  passionate  temper.  "  Never  mind," 
said  Henry  Fox,  always  for  leaving  both  well  and  ill  alone. 
"  He  is  a  very  sensible  little  fellow,  and  will  learn  to  cure 
himself."  "  I  will  not  deny,"  said  Charles,  when  he  told  the 
story,  "  that  I  was  a  very  sensible  little  boy — a  very  clever 
little  boy.  What  I  heard  made  an  impression  on  me,  and  was 
of  use  to  me  afterwards."  If  he  mended  his  faults  so  readily, 
it  certainly  is  a  pity  that  he  did  not  overhear  more  of  the  pa- 
rental criticisms ;  for  of  correction  and  reprimand  he  received 
little  or  none.  "  Let  nothing  be  done  to  break  his  spirit," 
Lord  Holland  used  to  say.  "  The  world  will  do  that  business 
fast  enough."     The  impression  left  by  the  father's  subservi- 


40  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  II. 

ence  to  all  the  child's  whims  and  fancies  is  preserved  in  many 
well-known  anecdotes  which,  for  the  most  part,  are  probably 
mythical.  The  shortest  and  best  of  these  stories  is  to  the 
effect  that  Charles  declared  his  intention  to  destroy  a  watch. 
"Well,"  said  Lord  Holland,  "if  you  must,  I  suppose  you 
must." 

The  boy  very  soon  got  beyond  the  teaching  of  women,  as 
women  then  were  educated.  There  was  truth  in  the  taunt 
which,  long  afterwards,  the  satirists  levelled  against  him :  how, 

"born  a  disputant,  a  sophist  bred, 
His  nurse  lie  silenced  and  his  tutor  led." 

An  unlucky  blunder  which  poor  Lady  Caroline  made  in  a 
question  of  Roman  history  settled  at  once  and  forever  her 
claims  as  an  instructress  in  the  estimation  of  her  irrepressible 
son  ;  and,  when  just  turned  of  seven,  he  was  sent  to  a  school 
at  Wandsworth,  then  much  in  vogue  among  the  aristocracy. 
The  master  was  a  Monsieur  Pampellonne,  from  whom  Charles 
Fox  perhaps  acquired  his  excellent  French  accent.  This  change 
in  his  circumstances  was  ordained,  like  everything  else,  by  his 
own  will  and  pleasure.  Nothing  can  be  more  quaint  and 
droll  than  the  respectful  delicacy  with  which  the  most  head- 
strong and  audacious  man  in  England  propounded  the  ques- 
tion of  home  or  school  for  the  consideration  of  his  small  lord 
and  master.  "  I  beg  to  know,"  Fox  wrote,  in  February,  1756, 
"  what  disposition  Charles  comes  up  in,  and  which  you  would 
have  me  encourage,  his  going  immediately  to  Wandsworth, 
or  staying  till  he  can  go  to  Eton."  And,  shortly  afterwards, 
"  I  was  going  to  dine  tete-a-tete  with  Charles,  when  I  was  sent 
for  to  the  House  of  Commons.  It  proved  a  false  alarm,  and 
only  prevented  my  dining  with  him,  but  not  playing  at  picket 
with  him  and  Peter.  He  is  infinitely  engaging,  and  clever 
and  pretty.  He  coughs  a  little,  and  is  hot.  Would  it  not  be 
best  to  persuade  him  to  go  to  Wandsworth  for  his  health  ?" 
At  last  the  decision  came.  "  Charles,"  wrote  his  father,  "  de- 
termines to  go  to  Wandsworth."  Eighteen  months  afterwards 
he  determined  to  go  to  Eton,  and  to  Eton  he  accordingly 
went.     There  he  studied  hard,  under  the  care  and  direction 


1749-68.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  41 

of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Francis,  known  among  boys  as  one  of  the  in- 
numerable translators  of  Horace,  and  among  men  as  the  fa- 
ther of  a  writer  who  has  contrived  to  occupy  a  greater  space 
in  the  annals  of  literature  than  if  he  had  been  undisputed 
author  of  the  "  Areopagitica"  and  the  "  Thoughts  on  the  Cause 
of  the  Present  Discontents."  In  a  happy  hour  for  his  own 
future  repose,  Lord  Holland  repaid  the  services  of  Dr.  Francis 
by  procuring  for  his  promising  son  Philip  a  clerkship  in  the 
office  of  the  secretary  of  state.1 

Though  saddled  with  the  encumbrance  of  a  private  tutor, 
Charles  Fox  was  highly  popular  among  his  schoolfellows. 
There  was  that  about  him  which  everywhere  made  him  the 
king  of  his  company,  without  effort  on  his  own  part,  or  jeal- 
ousy on  the  part  of  others.  Young  and  old  alike  watched 
with  hope  and  delight  the  development  of  that  fascinating 
yet  masterful  character.  Lord  Holland  was  proud  and  glad 
to  admit  that  the  son  bade  fair  to  be  "as  much  and  as  uni- 
versally beloved"  as  ever  the  father  was  hated.  When  the 
boy  was  still  in  his  fourteenth  year,  the  Duke  of  Devonshire, 
who  was  not  a  man  to  sow  compliments  broadcast,  concluded 
a  letter,  addressed  to  the  paymaster  on  high  matters  of  State, 

1  Dr.  Francis  had  kept  a  school  at  Esher,  in  Surrey.  Gibbon,  who  was 
with  him  for  a  few  weeks  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  complains  that  "  he  pre- 
ferred the  pleasures  of  London  to  the  instruction  of  his  pupils."  With  a 
view  of  reconciling  his  tastes  and  his  duties,  Francis  became  private  chap- 
lain to  Lady  Holland,  and  was  domesticated  in  her  family.  He  taught 
Lady  Sarah  Lennox  to  declaim,  and  Charles  Fox  to  read.  Dr.  Francis 
pronounced  Lord  Holland  himself  the  very  worst  reader  he  ever  heard; 
a  defect  which  the  Doctor  attributed  to  the  last  cause  which  any  one 
would  have  suspected — his  having  begun  to  read  the  Bible  too  early. 

Another  member  of  the  staff  of  Holland  House  was  Sir  George  Macart- 
ney, a  handsome  dashing  young  Irishman,  who  acted  as  a  sort  of  travel- 
ling tutor  and  companion  to  Charles.  Macartney,  who  had  to  a  remark- 
able degree  the  talent  of  success,  talked  and  pushed  himself  into  a  celeb- 
rity among  his  contemporaries  of  which  their  descendants  have  ceased 
to  take  much  account.  He  became  no  less  a  personage  than  Lord  Macart- 
ney, President  of  Madras,  Governor  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  Am- 
bassador to  China.  The  influence  and  position  which  Lord  Holland  en- 
joyed in  his  lifetime  must  have  been  very  great  when  measured  by  the 
number  and  importance  of  his  satellites. 


42  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  II. 

with  the  words  "  Commend  me  to  your  son  Charles  for  his 
sagacity."  Never  was  there  a  more  gracious  child,  more  rich 
in  promise,  more  prone  to  good,  when,  in  the  spring  of  1763, 
the  devil  entered  into  the  heart  of  Lord  Holland.  Harassed 
by  his  dispute  with  Lord  Shelburne,  and  not  unwilling  to 
withdraw  himself  and  his  new  title  for  a  time  from  the  notice 
of  his  countrymen,  he  could  think  of  no  better  diversion  than 
to  take  Charles  from  his  books,  and  convey  him  to  the  Con- 
tinent on  a  round  of  idleness  and  dissipation.  At  Spa  his 
amusement  was  to  send  his  son  every  night  to  the  gaming- 
table with  a  pocketful  of  gold ;  and  (if  family  tradition  may 
be  trusted  where  it  tells  against  family  credit)  the  parent  took 
not  a  little  pains  to  contrive  that  the  boy  should  leave  France 
a  finished  rake.1  After  four  months  spent  in  this  fashion, 
Charles,  of  his  own  accord,  persuaded  his  father  to  send  him 
back  to  Eton,  where  he  passed  another  year  with  more  advan- 
tage to  himself  than  to  the  school.  His  Parisian  experiences, 
aided  by  his  rare  social  talents  and  an  unbounded  command 
of  cash,  produced  a  visible  and  durable  change  for  the  worse 
in  the  morals  and  habits  of  the  place.2 

1  Lord  Russell's  "  Life  and  Times  of  Charles  James  Fox,"  vol.  i.  p.  4. 

2  The  parents  of  some  among  our  golden  youth  would  do  well  to  no- 
tice the  epithet  attached  by  a  born  gentleman  to  the  expense  and  luxury 
in  which  Henry  Fox  brought  up  his  family.  "  He  educated  his  children," 
said  Lord  Shelburne, "  without  the  least  regard  to  morality,  and  with 
such  extravagant  vulgar  indulgence  that  the  great  change  which  has 
taken  place  among  our  youth  has  been  dated  from  the  time  of  his  son's 
going  to  Eton." 

The  discipline  of  the  school  in  Dr.  Barnard's  day  was  none  of  the  best. 
Mr.  Whately,  in  a  letter  published  among  the  Grenville  papers,  relates 
that  he  was  riding  through  Eton  with  Lady  Mulgrave,  accompanied  by 
her  child  on  a  pony,  when  something  in  their  appearance  caught  the 
fancy  of  the  boys,  who  at  once  proceeded  to  mob  the  party.  Things 
were  beginning  to  look  serious,  when  George  Grenville's  son,  who  hap- 
pened luckily  to  be  in  the  crowd,  came  to  the  rescue..  "  Her  lad}Tship 
was  frightened,  dismounted,  and  fled  for  refuge  into  Lord  Mulgrave's 
chaise,  leaving  me  and  the  little  urchin  in  the  midst  of  the  circle.  My 
good  friend  Tom  give  me  a  wink  and  a  wThisper,  advising  me  to  make 
my  retreat  as  soon  as  possible.  I  followed  his  advice,  and  think  he  got 
me  out  of  a  scrape."    This,  says  the  editor  of  the  papers,  was  an  early 


1749-68.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  43 

Dr.  Barnard,  the  head-master,  a  man  who  had  too  much 
spirit,  humor,  and  independence  ever  to  become  one  of  George 
the  Third's  bishops,  did  his  best  to  laugh  Charles  out  of  his 
fopperies  and  improprieties ;  but  he  had  not  the  heart  to  deal 
sharply  with  a  lad  whom  he  loved  all  the  better  for  being,  like 
himself,  "  rather  a  mutineer  than  a  courtier."  The  Doctor 
was  great  in  elocution.  His  reading  of  the  Church  Service 
has  been  cited  as  "  absolute  perfection ;"  and  his  pulpit  man- 
ner was  much  admired,  perhaps  rather  in  consequence  than  in 
spite  of  its  haste  and  vehemence.  The  same  description  ex- 
actly applies  to  the  declamation  of  his  pupil ;  but,  long  be- 
fore he  sat  under  Dr.  Barnard,  Charles  Fox  could  get  quite  as 
many  words  into  a  minute  as  the  conditions  of  human  respi- 
ration would  allow.  He  could  always  obtain  leave  to  run  up 
to  London  when  an  interesting  question  was  on  in  the  House 
of  Commons.1  The  head-master,  with  good  reason,  attended 
carefully  to  the  rhetorical  training  of  boys  who  had  boroughs 
waiting  for  them  as  soon  as  they  came  of  age ;  and  Fox,  with 
his  repertory  of  favorite  passages  from  the  dramatists,  and  his 
passion  for  an  argument,  was  always  to  the  front  both  in  the 
speech-room  and  the  debating  society.  A  tribute  to  his  school- 
boy eloquence  remains  in  the  shape  of  a  dozen  contemporary 
couplets  from  the  facile  pen  of  Lord  Carlisle,  of  which  the 
best  that  can  be  said  is  that  they  are  no  worse  than  anything 
which  his  lordship's  celebrated  kinsman  produced  while  he 
was  still  at  Harrow.2 

indication  of  the  sagacity  and  discretion  for  which  Mr.  Thomas  Grenville 
was  so  eminently  distinguished  during  his  long  career. 

1 "  The  Speaker,"  wrote  Henry  Fox,  in  November,  1763,  "  fell  ill,  wrhich 
disappointed  Charles  of  a  debate  on  Friday." 

2         "  How  will,  my  Fox,  alone,  thy  strength  of  parts 
Shake  the  loud  senate,  animate  the  hearts 
Of  fearful  statesmen,  while  around  you  stand 
Both  Peers  and  Commons  listening  your  command ! 
While  Tully's  sense  its  weight  to  you  affords, 
His  nervous  sweetness  shall  adorn  your  words. 
What  praise  to  Pitt,  to  Townshend,  e'er  was  due, 
In  future  times,  my  Fox,  shall  wait  on  you." 
These  lines  are  quite  up  to  the  standard  of  the  poem  on  "Childish 


44  THE  EARLY  HISTORY    OF  [Chap.  II. 

Dr.  Barnard  possessed  what  is  by  far  the  rarest  among  all 
the  qualities  of  an  instructor,  the  tolerance  that  will  permit 
clever  boys  to  be  clever  in  their  own  way.  The  insipidity  of 
school  and  college  exercises,  which  is  ordinarily  charged  to 
the  account  of  the  author,  is  quite  as  often  due  to  the  fastid- 
iousness of  the  judges  whom  it  is  his  aim  to  please.  Those 
who  insist  on  perfect  good  taste  and  demure  propriety  in  the 
productions  of  the  young  may  get  taste  and  propriety,  but 
they  will  get  nothing  more ;  as  may  be  seen  by  any  one  who 
compares  the  value  of  everything  which  has  been  written  to 
win  the  verdict  of  professors  and  masters  of  colleges,  with 
much  that  has  been  given  to  the  world  by  men,  no  older  than 
undergraduates,  who  have  boldly  obeyed  the  impulse  of  their 
unfettered  genius.  All  the  prize  verse  of  Cam  and  Isis  to- 
gether is  not  worth  half  a  canto  of  "  Childe  Harold,"  or  ten 
stanzas  of  the  "  Hymn  on  the  Nativity."  The  schoolmasters  of 
North  and  Fox,  though  they  had  not  a  Milton  or  a  Byron  to 
educate,  were  too  sensible  to  be  annoyed  by  the  crudity  or 
terrified  by  the  audacity  of  aspiring  sixteen  ;  and  beneath  the 
rule  of  Dr.  Barnard  and  his  predecessor  the  Eton  muse  was 
distinguished  by  a  pleasant  spice  of  originality,  which  is  no- 
where so  marked  as  in  the  effusions  of  the  two  lads  who  were 
destined  to  shake  the  senate  by  their  dissensions,  and  to  ruin 
each  other  by  their  fatal  reconciliation.  Among  all  Fox's 
imitations  of  the  classical  writers,  there  is  nothing  dull  or  com- 
monplace except  a  Greek  idyl  in  which  a  party  of  shepherds 
discourse  about  a  recent  eclipse  in  a  vein  something  too  scep- 
tical and  materialistic  for  Arcadia — a  performance  which,  at 
the  worst,  displays  an  acquaintance  with  Theocritus  credit- 
able to  so  young  a  scholar.  A  piece  of  a  much  higher  order 
is  a  farewell  to  Eton,  in  which  the  boy  addresses  Dr.  Barnard 
as  the  English  Quintilian,  and  describes  himself  as  more  fond- 
ly attached  to  the  Playing-fields  than  even  to  the  groves  and 

Recollections"  in  the  "Hours  of  Idleness ;"  with  the  additional  advan- 
tage that  Lord  Carlisle  called  Fox  by  his  proper  name,  while  Byron  ad- 
dressed his  schoolfellows  as  Euryalus  and  Lycus  and  Alonzo,  and,  with- 
out any  excuse  on  the  score  of  metre,  must  needs  speak  of  Harrow  as 
Ida. 


1749-68.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  45 

lawns  of  Holland  House.1  But  still  more  full  of  spirit  and 
promise  are  the  elegies  in  which  Lord  North  and  his  future 
rival  sang  their  premature  loves.  "Laura,  indeed,"  wrote 
North,  "  is  fair,  and  Lydia  too  is  fair.  Fairer  is  Aula,  but 
fairer  after  another  model.  Small  art  thou,  Chloris ;  but  not 
small  is  thy  glory,  as  of  a  violet  that  nestles  lowly  in  the  dew." 
As  for  Clarissa,  the  young  connoisseur  tells  us,  in  the  very 
neatest  of  pentameters,  that,  while  each  separate  feature  fails 
to  please,  she  pleases  as  a  whole.  In  Latin  quite  as  good, 
and  with  an  even  more  astonishing  air  of  maturity,  Charles 
Fox  celebrates  the  dove  as  the  courser  of  Venus,  and  the  dis- 
creet and  silent  messenger  of  divided  lovers.2  As  for  him- 
self, his  sighs  are  directed  to  Susanna,  a  name  so  ill  adapted 
to  Ovidian  poetry  that  it  can  hardly  have  been  fictitious.  His 
goddess,  in  all  likelihood,  was  his  cousin  Lady  Susan  Strang- 
ways,  a  daughter  of  Lord  Ilchester,  between  whom  and  him- 
self there  existed  a  disparity  of  years  quite  sufficient  to  attract 
the  homage  of  a  schoolboy. 

The  young  Etonian  is  as  alive  as  ever  on  the  canvas  of  one 
of  Sir  Joshua's  very  best  pictures.  There  he  may  be  seen, 
smart,  but  rather  untidy,  in  a  blue  laced  coat,  looking  amaz- 


1  "  Ut  patriae  (neque  enirn  ingratus  natalia  rura 

Praeposui  campis,  mater  Etona,  tuis), 
Ut  patriae,  carisque  sodalibus,  ut  tibi  dicam, 
Anglice,  supremum,  Quintiliane,  Vale. 

2  "  Nempe,  alis  invecta  tuis,  tibi  semper  amores 

Fidit  in  amplexus  Martis  itura  Venus. 
Garrulitas  nostroe  quondam  temeraria  linguae 

Indicio  prodit  multa  tacenda  levi ; 
At  tibi  vox  nulla  est." 

There  is  a  sort  of  fifth-form  coxcombry  about  the  lines  which  must  have 
tickled  such  a  humorist  as  Dr.  Barnard. 

"  If  I  had  a  boy,"  said  Fox  to  Samuel  Kogers, "  I  would  make  him 
write  verses.  It  is  the  only  way  to  know  the  meaning  of  words."  An 
Etonian  to  the  backbone,  he  maintained  to  the  end  of  his  life  that  none 
but  those  who  had  learned  the  art  within  the  shadow  of  Henry  the 
Sixth's  Chapel  ever  acquired  "  a  correct  notion  of  Greek,  or  even  Latin, 
metre." 


46  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  II. 

ingly  old  for  fourteen,  with  his  jet-black  curls,  and  his  strongly 
moulded  rounded  features  of  a  Jewish  cast — if  that  nation 
could  be  associated  with  poor  Charles  Fox  in  any  connection 
but  one.  The  boy  is  represented  with  a  paper  in  his  hand, 
from  which  he  is  apparently  holding  forth  for  the  benefit  of 
his  pretty  cousin,  and  his  prettier  aunt,  of  whom  the  former 
was  soon  to  marry  an  actor,  and  the  latter  had  already  refused 
a  king.  Lady  Sarah  Lennox,  as  the  sweetest  of  little  children, 
had  been  the  pet  of  old  George  the  Second.  Her  mother  died 
before  she  had  left  the  nursery,  and  she  was  thenceforward 
brought  up,  rather  as  a  daughter  than  a  sister,  by  the  Duch- 
ess of  Leinster  and  Lady  Caroline  Fox.  She*  was  not  likely 
long  to  be  a  burden  on  her  chaperons.  "  Her  great  beauty," 
said  Henry  Fox,  "  was  a  peculiarity  of  countenance  that  made 
her  at  the  same  time  different  from,  and  prettier  than,  any 
other  girl  I  ever  saw."  In  January,  1761,  Horace  Walpole 
gives  an  enthusiastic  account  of  some  private  theatricals  per- 
formed at  Holland  House,  in  which  she  played  Jane  Shore, 
of  all  parts  to  be  selected  for  a  young  lady  who  still  was,  or 
ought  to  have  been,  in  the  schoolroom.  "  Lady  Sarah,"  writes 
Walpole,  "  was  more  beautiful  than  you  can  conceive.  No 
Magdalene  by  Correggio  was  half  so  lovely  and  expressive."  l 
So  thought  the  king,  who,  in  the  first  flush  of  his  royalty, 
imagined  that  his  mother  and  his  groom  of  the  stole  would 
allow  him  to  choose  a  wife  for  himself.  He  sent  his  propos- 
al, couched  in  terms  somewhat  unusual,  but  quite  unmistak- 
able, through  Lady  Susan  Strangways,  who,  as  he  well  knew, 
was  in  the  habit  of  spending  half  her  days  at  Holland  House. 
The  next  time  that  Lady  Sarah  Lennox  appeared  at  court, 

1  In  the  large  picture  at  Holland  House  Reynolds  has  concentrated  his 
strength  upon  young  Charles  Fox,  and  does  scanty  justice  to  the  ladies; 
but  there  is  another  Sir  Joshua,  engraved  in  the  second  volume  of 
"  George  Selwyn  and  his  Contemporaries,"  which  has  immortalized  such 
a  face  as  may  not  be  seen  in  a  generation.  "  In  white,  and  with  her  hair 
about  her  ears,"  this  exquisite  portrait  exactly  answers  to  Walpole's  de- 
scription of  Lady  Sarah  as  Jane  Shore.  The  expression,  which  is  studied 
to  suit  the  character,  says  everything  for  the  consummate  art  of  the 
painter,  and  not  a  little  for  the  lady's  proficiency  as  an  actress. 


1749-08.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  47 

the  king  took  her  aside  into  a  bow-window,  and  asked  wheth- 
er she  had  got  his  message,  and  what  she  thought  of  it.  "  Tell 
me,"  he  pleaded,  "  for  my  happiness  depends  on  it."  "  Noth- 
ing, sir,"  replied  the  lady,  who,  to  say  truth,  had  just  then 
some  one  else  in  her  head.  "Nothing  comes  of  nothing," 
said  his  Majesty;  and  he  turned  away  in  manifest  vexation, 
having  done  his  duty  under  difficulties  to  which  a  monarch 
has  a  right  to  anticipate  that  he  will  never  find  himself  ex- 
posed. 

Lady  Sarah,  while  spending  her  Easter  in  the  country,  had 
the  misfortune  to  fall  with  her  horse  and  break  her  leg.  The 
king  questioned  Henry  Fox  closely  and  anxiously  about  her 
state,  with  signs  of  deep  feeling  which  were  meant  to  be  ob- 
served. The  evidences  of  his  devotion  were  duly  conveyed 
to  the  right  quarter  by  means  of  a  minute  report  from  the 
paymaster  to  his  wife,  who  was  nursing  her  sister  down  in 
Somersetshire.1  Six  weeks  of  unwelcome  leisure  enabled  Lady 
Sarah  to  reconsider  the  whole  matter ;  and,  before  the  sum- 
mer had  set  in,  she  was  back  in  London,  knowing  her  own 
mind,  and  looking  more  beautiful  than  ever.  The  town  began 
to  talk.  "  The  birthday,"  wrote  Walpole  on  the  thirteenth  of 
June,  "exceeded  the  splendor  of  the  \  Arabian  Nights.'  Do 
you  remember  one  of  those  stories  where  a  prince  has  eight 
statues  of  diamonds,  which  he  overlooks  because  he  fancies 
he  wants  a  ninth ;  and  the  ninth  proves  to  be  pure  flesh  and 
blood  ?  Somehow  or  other,  Lady  Sarah  is  the  ninth  statue." 
A  witty  lady  of  rank,  who  had  reason  to  be  proud  of  her  fig- 
ure, caught  Lady  Sarah  by  the  skirt  as  she  was  entering  the 
presence  chamber  in  the  order  of  precedence.  "  Do,"  she  said, 
"  let  me  go  in  before  you  this  once,  for  you  never  will  have 
another  opportunity  of  seeing  my  beautiful  back."  June  was 
passed  in  a  flutter  of  hope  and  agitation ;  but  the  princess 
royal  had  no  mind  to  be  mother-in-law  even  to  so  bewitching 
a  Cinderella.     The  letter  in  which  Lady  Sarah  announces  to 

1  "  If  Lady  Sarah  don't  be  quiet,"  wrote  Henry  Fox  to  his  wife  on  the 
nineteenth  of  April,  1701,  "it  will  be  the  longer  before  she  can  dance,  and 
show  her  pretty  self  to  advantage." 


48  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  II. 

her  friend  Lady  Susan  that  her  hopes  were  at  an  end — a  let- 
ter the  spelling  and  punctuation  of  which  prove  that  the 
writer  was  worthy  to  occupy  the  throne  of  Anne  and  Mary 
of  Orange — is  the  most  charming  of  all  the  documents  which 
bear  upon  English  history.1  His  Majesty  treated  her  with 
marked  distinction  both  then  and  afterwards ;  but  it  was  a 
cruel  courtesy  to  name  her  as  a  bridesmaid!  Lady  Sarah, 
however,  had  her  revenge.  Walpole,  in  the  narrative  of  the 
royal  wedding  which  he  sent  to  General  Conway,  tells  us  that, 
"  with  neither  features  nor  air,  she  was  by  far  the  chief  angel ;" 
and  it  was  an  easy  triumph  to  outshine  a  bride  whose  looks 
never  earned  her  a  compliment  until,  after  the  lapse  of  many 
years,  her  own  chamberlain  ventured  to  express  his  belief 
that  "  the  bloom  of  her  ugliness  was  going  off."  Time,  which 
was  kind  to  Queen  Charlotte,  bore  lightly  on  her  rival.  In 
1781  the  Prince  of  Wales  declared  that  Lady  Sarah  could  not 
have  been  more  lovely  in  the  days  when  his  father  was  at 
her  feet.  She  became  the  mother  of  the  most  illustrious  fam- 
ily of  heroes  that  ever  graced  the  roll  of  the  British  army. 
Twice  on  the  evening  of  a  hard-fought  battle  Lord  "Welling- 
ton snatched  a  moment  to  let  her  know  that  two  Napiers  had 
been  gloriously  wounded.     Within  a  few  hours  after  he  had 


1  The  most  delightful  passage,  if  it  were  possible  to  make  a  choice,  is 
that  in  which  Lady  Sarah  carefully  defines  the  extent  and  nature  of  her 
disappointment.  "  I  did  not  cry  I  assure  you  which  I  believe  you  will,  as 
I  know  you  were  more  set  upon  it  than  I  was,  the  thing  I  am  most  angry 
at  is  looking  so  like  a  fool  as  I  shall  for  having  gone  so  often  for  noth- 
ing but  I  don't  much  care,  if  he  was  to  change  his  mind  again  (which 
can't  be  tho')  and  not  give  a  very  very  good  reason  for  his  conduct  I 
would  not  have  him."  The  whole  letter,  with  much  else  of  the  highest 
value  and  interest,  may  be  found  in  Princess  Mary  Liechtenstein's  vol- 
umes. When  Sir  William  Napier,  the  historian  of  the  Peninsular  War, 
was  seventeen,  he  spelled  as  badly  as  his  mother  at  the  same  age,  and 
minded  his  stops,  if  possible,  even  less ;  but  his  early  letters,  like  hers, 
positively  sparkle  with  fire  and  fun.  He  certainly  inherited  her  beauty. 
An  officer  who  saw  him,  for  the  first  time,  left  for  dead  under  a  tree  at 
Casal  Noval,  where  he  had  been  shot  down  within  a  few  yards  of  the 
French  muzzles,  thought  him  the  handsomest  man  he  had  ever  met  or 
dreamed  of. 


1749-G8.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  49 

been  helped  down  the  breach  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  the  second 
of  the  three,  writing  with  his  left  hand,  told  her  that  he  had 
lost  his  best  arm  at  the  head  of  the  storming  party.  With 
sons  as  good  as  they  were  brave  and  gifted,  every  one  of 
whom  loved  her  as  she  deserved,  she  had  little  reason  to  envy 
her  old  admirer  the  moral  reputation,  the  martial  exploits,  or 
the  filial  affection  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  the  Duke  of 
York. 

Charles  Fox  left  Eton  for  Oxford  in  1764.  He  was  entered 
at  Hertford  College,  which,  crushed  down  for  a  time  by  its 
wealthier  neighbors  in  the  struggle  for  academical  existence, 
has  in  our  own  day  been  munificently  re-endowed  as  a  train- 
ing-school of  principles  and  ideas  very  different  from  those 
ordinarily  associated  with  the  name  of  its  greatest  son.  Early 
in  George  the  Third's  reign  the  college  flourished  under  the 
care  of  Dr.  Newcome,  a  good,  wise,  and  learned  divine,  who 
afterwards  became  Primate  of  Ireland  on  the  nomination  of 
Lord  Fitzwilliam.  A  poor  foundation  has  attractions  for  none 
but  rich  scholars ;  and  Dr.  Newcome's  pupils  were,  for  the 
most  part,  young  men  of  family.  The  first  Lord  Malmesbury, 
who  was  in  the  same  set  as  Charles  Fox,  though  not  in  the 
same  college,  informs  us  that  the  lads  who  ranked  as  gentle- 
men-commoners enjoyed  the  privilege  of  living  as  they  pleased, 
and  were  never  called  upon  to  attend  either  lectures  or  hall 
or  chapel.  "The  men,"  says  his  lordship,  "with  whom  I 
lived  were  very  pleasant,  but  very  idle,  fellowrs.  Our  life  was 
an  imitation  of  high  life  in  London.  Luckily,  drinking  was 
not  the  fashion ;  biit  what  we  did  drink  was  claret,  and  we 
had  our  regular  round  of  evening  card-parties,  to  the  great 
annoyance  of  our  finances.  It  has  often  been  a  matter  of 
surprise  to  me  how  so  many  of  us  made  our  way  so  well  in 
the  wTorld,  and  so  creditably."  ' 


1  Lord  Malmesbury  was  tlie  son  of  Mr.  Harris,  a  member  of  Parliament 
and  a  placeman,  with  a  love  for  the  by-ways  of  literature.  When  he  took 
his  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons,  John  Townshend  asked  who  he  was, 
and,  being  told  that  he  had  written  on  "  Grammar  and  Harmony,"  ob- 
served, "  Why  does  he  come  here,  where  he  will  find  neither  ?" 

4 


i/ 


50  THE   EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  II. 

Among  these  pleasant  fellows  Charles  Fox  passed  for  the 
pleasantest;  but  idle  he  was  not.  He  read  as  hard  as  any 
young  Englishman  who  does  not  look  to  university  success 
for  his  livelihood  or  advancement  will  ever  read  for  reading's 
sake.  He  gave  himself  diligently  to  mathematics,  which  he 
liked  "  vastly."  "I  believe  they  are  useful,"  he  writes,  "and 
I  am  sure  they  are  entertaining,  which  is  alone  enough  to 
recommend  them  to  me."  Pursuing  them  with  zest  at  the 
age  when  they  most  rapidly  and  effectually  fulfil  their  special 
function  of  bracing  the  reasoning  faculties  for  future  use,  he 
got  more  profit  from  them  than  if  he  had  been  a  senior 
wrangler.  "I  did  not,"  said  Fox,  speaking  of  the  Univer- 
sity, "  expect  my  life  here  could  be  so  pleasant  as  I  find  it ; 
but  I  really  think,  to  a  man  who  reads  a  great  deal,  there 
cannot  be  a  more  agreeable  place."  He  loved  Oxford  as  dear- 
ly as  did  Shelley,  and  for  the  same  reasons,  and  quitted  it  al- 
most as  much  against  his  will.1  By  his  own  request  he  was 
permitted  to  spend  a  second  year  at  college,  where  he  resided 
continuously,  both  in  and  out  of  term-time,  whenever  his  fa- 
ther could  be  induced  to  spare  his  company.  He  remained 
at  Oxford  during  the  long  vacation  of  1765,  reading  as  if  his 
bread  depended  on  a  fellowship,  and  was  seldom  to  be  seen 
outside  his  own  rooms,  except  when  standing  at  the  book- 
seller's counter,  deep  in  Ford  or  Massinger.  He  was  one  of 
those  students  who  do  not  need  the  spur.  "Application  like 
yours,"  wrote  Dr.  Newcome,  "  requires  some  intermission,  and 
you  are  the  only  person  with  whom  I  have  ever  had  connec- 
tion to  whom  I  could  say  this."  Many  years  afterwards,  when 
Charles  Fox  was  secretary  of  state,  he  took  the  precaution 
of  carrying  his  old  tutor's  letter  in  his  pocketbook  as  a  tes- 


1  Shelley's  happy  and  peaceful  industry  at  Oxford,  and  his  misery 
when  he  was  driven  forth  from  that  quiet  haven  into  a  world  where  he 
was  as  much  at  home  as  a  bird-of-paradise  on  the  side  of  Bencruachan, 
are  portrayed  with  almost  preternatural  vividness  in  Hogg's  strange  frag- 
ment of  biography,  perhaps  the  most  interesting  book  in  our  language 
that  has  never  been  republished. 


1749-68.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  51 

timonial  ready  to  be  produced  whenever  he  was  rallied  for 
laziness  by  his  colleagues  in  the  cabinet.1 

Three  more  years  of  such  a  life  would  have  fortified  his 
character  and  moulded  his  tastes ;  would  have  preserved  him 
from  untold  evil,  and  quadrupled  his  influence  as  a  statesman. 
But  everything  which  the  poor  fellow  tried  to  do  for  himself 
was  undone  by  the  fatal  caprice  of  his  father.  "  Charles," 
wrote  Lord  Holland,  in  July,  1765,  "  is  now  at  Oxford  study- 
ing very  hard,  after  two  months  at  Paris,  which  he  relished  as 
much  as  ever.  Such  a  mixture  was  never  seen  ;  but,  extraor- 
dinary as  it  is,  it  seems  likely  to  do  very  well."  His  lord- 
ship, like  many  other  people,  apparently  thought  that  a  theory 
of  education  cannot  be  pushed  too  far.  Two  months  of  for- 
eign travel  had  agreed  so  well  with  his  son  that  two  years  of 
it  might  effect  wonders.  In  the  spring  of  1766,  Charles  was 
taken  from  Oxford ;  and  in  the  autumn  Lord  and  Lady  Hol- 
land once  more  started  for  the  Continent.  Travelling  in  pa- 
triarchal fashion,  with  three  sons  and  a  daughter-in-law,  they 
made  their  way  slowly  to  Naples.  There  they  spent  the  win- 
ter, with  much  benefit  to  Lord  Holland's  now  declining 
health.  The  old  statesman  showed  better  in  retirement  than 
in  office.  Those  who  lived  with  him  found  much  pleasure  and 
little  trouble  in  amusing  one  who  was  a  delightful  companion 
to  others  and  to  himself.  His  love  of  reading  had  many  years 
before  excited  the  envy  of  Sir  Robert  "Walpole,  who  antici- 
pated with  positive  dismay  the  time  when  a  mind  for  whose 
activity  the  business  of  three  kingdoms  hardly  sufficed  would 
be  reduced  to  seek  occupation  within  the  walls  of  the  library 


1  A  letter  from  Dr.  ISTewcome  to  his  one  industrious  pupil  indicates 
that  the  curriculum  at  Hertford  College  was  not  exceptionally  severe.  It 
appears  that  when  Charles  Fox  was  away  at  Paris  or  in  London,  the  sci- 
entific studies  of  the  other  young  Whigs  remained  in  abeyance.  "  As  to 
trigonometry,"  says  the  Doctor,  "  it  is  a  matter  of  entire  indifference  to  the 
other  geometricians  of  the  college  whether  they  proceed  to  the  other 
branches  of  mathematics  immediately,  or  wait  a  term  or  two  longer.  You 
need  not,  therefore,  interrupt  your  amusements  by  severe  studies,  for  it  is 
wholly  unnecessary  to  take  a  step  onward  without  you,  and  therefore  we 
shall  stop  until  we  have  the  pleasure  of  your  company." 


V 


52  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  II. 

at  Houghton.  Lord  Holland,  if  politics  had  left  him  any  su- 
perfluous energy,  might  have  made  a  respectable  figure  as  an 
author.  His  clear  but  unpretentious  letters  are  those  of  a 
good  writer  who  was  not  fond  of  putting  pen  to  paper,  and 
he  could  turn  a  verse  with  the  best  of  the  clever  people  of 
fashion  to  whom  rhyming  was  then  an  indispensable  accom- 
plishment. Several  of  his  fugitive  pieces  bear  the  date  of 
this  tour ;  and  the  most  telling  lines  that  he  ever  wrote,  in- 
spired by  the  unfailing  theme  of  Eigby's  ingratitude,  were 
actually  composed,  as  they  profess  to  have  been  composed, 
during  his  return  journey  over  the  pass  of  Mont  Cenis.1 

Charles  had  arranged  that  Lord  Carlisle  should  join  him  in 
the  course  of  the  winter,  so  that  the  two  friends  might  make 
the  tour  of  Italy  together ;  but  when  the  time  came,  the  young 
nobleman  would  not  leave  London,  where  he  was  fluttering 
round  the   shrine  of  no  less  a  goddess  than  Lady  Sarah.2 


1  This  little  poem,  in  something  over  a  score  of  couplets,  expresses 
Lord  Holland's  acknowledgment  to  Italy  for  having  repaired  his  "shat- 
tered nerves,"  and  enabled  him  to  look  back  with  equanimity  on  the  in- 
fidelity and  selfishness  of  his  former  colleagues. 

"  Slight  was  the  pain  they  gave,  and  short  its  date. 
I  found  I  could  not  both  despise  and  hate. 
But,  Rigby,  what  I  did  for  thee  endure  ! 
Thy  serpent's  tooth  admitted  of  no  cure. 
Lost  converse,  never  thought  of  without  tears  ! 
Lost  promised  hope  of  my  declining  years ! 
Oh,  what  a  heavy  task  'tis  to  remove 
Th'  accustomed  ties  of  confidence  and  love ! 
Friendship  in  anguish  turned  away  her  face, 
While  cunning  Interest  sneered  at  her  disgrace." 

2  Lord  Holland  addressed  from  Naples  a  poetical  remonstrance  to  his 
sister-in-law  on  her  cruelty  to  Lord  Carlisle,  in  imitation  of  Horace's  ap- 
peal to  Lydia  in  behalf  of  Sybaris.     The  opening  lines, 

"  Sally,  Sally,  don't  deny," 

are  very  pretty,  in  spite  of  a  false  rhyme  and  an  asseveration  that  is  far 
too  strong  for  the  occasion.     The  second  stanza  will  bear  transcription : 

"  Manly  exercise  and  sport, 
Hunting,  and  the  tennis-court, 


1749-08.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  53 

When  April  came,  Lord  and  Lady  Holland  returned  to  Eng- 
land ;  while  Charles,  who  at  all  times  in  his  life  could  obtain 
as  many  companions  as  he  wanted  by  holding  up  his  finger, 
remained  on  the  Continent  with  Lord  Fitzwilliam,  and  Mr. 
Uvedale  Price,  an  Eton  acquaintance  of  his  own  age.  In  the 
following  October  the  old  people  crossed  the  Channel  again, 
but  got  no  farther  than  the  South  of  France,  where  they  made 
an  unbroken  stay  of  six  months.  They  were  followed  by 
Lord  Carlisle,  who  at  length  tore  himself  away  from  London, 
and  set  forth  upon  his  "  necessary  banishment ;"  broken-heart- 
ed, of  course,  but,  as  is  pretty  evident  from  his  subsequent 
correspondence,  by  no  means  inconsolable.  Lord  Holland, 
who  had  been  wofully  bored  at  Nice,1  though  he  admitted 
that  angels  could  not  enjoy  better  weather,  was  sincerely 
grateful  for  the  trouble  which  the  young  men  took  to  amuse 
"  one,"  he  writes,  "  so  universally  despised  as  I  am.  Lord 
Carlisle  is  very  good  to  Charles,  and  Charles  to  me,  to  be  so 
cheerful  as  they  are  in  this  dull  place."  "  Harry,"  he  says 
elsewhere,  speaking  of  his  youngest  son,  "  will  lose  no  learn- 
ing by  being  with  Charles,  instead  of  being  at  Eton.  I  am 
sure  I  am  a  great  gainer  by  the  latter's  kind  and  cheerful  stay 
here ;  and  if  I  were  to  go  on  expatiating  upon  his  and  Lord 

And  riding-school  no  more  divert ; 
Newmarket  does,  for  there  you  flirt. 

But  why  does  he  no  longer  dream 
Of  yellow  Tiber  and  its  shore  ? 

Of  his  friend  Charles's  favorite  scheme, 
On  waking,  think  no  more  ?" 

1  Charles  had  called  on  Lord  Breadalbane  to  make  inquiries  about 
Nice,  and  brought  Lord  Holland  back  a  most  uninviting  account.  "  The 
commandant,  le  Comte  de  Nangis,  of  a  good  family  in  Savoy,  and  his 
lady  are  very  polite,  and  were  extremely  obliging  to  Lord  and  Lady 
Glenorchy.  There  is  an  assembly  at  his  house  every  evening,  consisting 
of  from  fifteen  to  twenty-five  ladies,  and  men  in  proportion,  where  they 
play  cards  very  low.  There  is  no  other  meeting  of  company  in  the  town, 
and  consequently  very  little,  or  rather  no,  amusement.  The  lodgings  are 
bad,  with  bare  walls  and  brick  floors,  and  there  is  certainly  nothing  to 
invite  strangers  thither  but  the  air.  The  best  house  to  be  let  is  a  new- 
built  one  in  the  square,  but  quite  unfurnished." 


54  THE  EAKLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  II. 

Carlisle's  merits,  I  should  never  have  done.  They  have,  and 
promise,  every  agreeable  and  good  quality ;  and  will  not  de- 
spise themselves,  or  be  despised  by  other  people,  at  least  these 
forty  years."  Forty  years  from  that  time  Charles  Fox  was  in 
Westminster  Abbey,  and  Lord  Carlisle  was  patiently  submit- 
ting to  the  alternate  praises  and  insults  of  his  fiery  young 
cousin:  conduct  for  which  Byron,  when  his  arrogance  had 
been  corrected  by  the  experience  of  a  real  sorrow,  made  mem- 
orable atonement  in  his  noblest  poem.1 

Early  in  1768  Lord  Carlisle  set  off  upon  a  journey,  the 
stages  of  which  may  be  traced  in  his  letters  to  George  Selwyn 
— letters  so  good  as  to  arouse  a  regret  that  the  writer  did  not 
devote  himself  to  a  province  of  literature  in  which  he  might 
have  been  mentioned  with  Walpole,  instead  of  manufacturing 
poetry  which  it  was  flattery  to  compare  with  Roscommon's. 
Accompanied  by  Lord  Kildare,  he  crossed  the  Alps  in  a  style 
very  different  from  that  in  which  Englishmen  of  his  age  cross 
them  now ;  in  a  chair  carried  by  six  men,  shuddering  at  every 
step,  and  tortured  bj  apprehensions  for  the  safety  of  his  dog, 
which,  bolder  than  himself,  ventured  now  and  then  to  look 
over  the  edge  of  a  precipice.  The  scenery  of  a  fine  pass  in- 
spired him  with  no  ideas  except  those  of  horror  and  melan- 
choly ;  and  he  never  speaks  of  "  beauties"  until  he  is  safe  and 
warm  in  the  Opera-house  at  Turin.2  At  Genoa  he  met  Charles 
Fox,  who,  like  a  good  son,  had  stayed  at  Nice  till  the  last  mo- 
ment ;  and  the  three  friends  went  by  Piacenza,  Parma,  and 
Bologna  to  Florence,  and  thence  to  Rome.  The  history  of  their 
proceedings  may  be  read  in  the  fourth  book  of  the  "  Dunciad." 
Lads  of  eighteen  and  nineteen,  who  had  been  their  own  mas- 
ters almost  since  they  could  remember;  bearing  names  that 
were  a  passport  to  any  circle ;  with  unimpaired  health,  and  a 
credit  at  their  banker's  which  they  were  not  yet  old  enough 
to  have  exhausted,  made  their  grand  tour  after  much  the 


1  "  Childe  Harold,"  canto  iii.,  stanzas  xxix.  and  xxx. 

3  Three  years  previously  to  this,  Wilkes  pronounces  the  Apennines  to 
be  "  not  near  so  high  nor  so  horrid  as  the  Alps.  On  the  Alps  you  see 
very  few  tolerable  spots." 


1749-68.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  55 

same  fashion  at  all  periods  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  and  it 
is  unnecessary  to  repeat  what  Pope  has  told  in  a  manner  that 
surpasses  himself.  Travelling  with  eight  servants  apiece ; 
noticed  by  queens ;  treated  as  equals  by  ambassadors ;  losing 
their  hearts  in  one  palace  and  their  money  in  another,  and  yet, 
on  the  whole,  getting  into  less  mischief  in  high  society  than 
when  left  to  their  own  devices,  they 

"  sauntered  Europe  round, 
And  gathered  every  vice  on  Christian  ground ; 
Saw  every  court ;  heard  every  king  declare 
His  royal  sense  of  operas  or  the  fair; 
Tried  all  hors-d'ceuvres,  all  liqueurs  defined, 
Judicious  drank,  and  greatly  daring  dined.1' ■ 

Fox  threw  into  his  follies  a  vivacity  and  an  originality  which 
were  meant  for  better  things.  Looking  forward  to  the  day 
when,  as  arbiter  of  dress,  he  was  to  lead  the  taste  of  the  town 
through  all  stages  from  coxcombry  to  slovenliness,  he  spared 
no  pains  to  equip  himself  for  the  exercise  of  his  lofty  func- 
tions. He  tried  upon  Italian  dandies  the  effect  of  the  queer 
little  French  hat  and  the  red  heels  with  which  he  designed 
to  astonish  his  brother-macaronies  of  St.  James's  Street;  and, 
before  he  and  his  friend  left  the  Continent,  the  pair  of  scape- 

1  The  memoirs  of  last  century  swarm  with  proofs  that  young  English- 
men of  family  wTere  only  too  well  received  in  Continental,  and  most  of  all 
in  Italian,  drawing-rooms.  The  nobleman  who,  rather  by  contrast  to  the 
others  of  his  name  than  for  any  exceptionally  heinous  misdoings  of  his 
own,  goes  by  the  sobriquet  of"  the  bad  Lord  Lyttelton,"  dated  his  moral 
ruin  from  his  grand  tour,  when  he  fought  two  duels  and  found  the  wom- 
en "  all  Armidas."  It  might  have  been  thought  that  young  George  Gren- 
ville's  report  of  his  experiences  at  Naples  in  the  year  1774  was  over-col- 
ored, if  it  had  been  addressed  to  any  less  respectable  correspondent  than 
Lord  Temple.  A  nephew  may  be  trusted  to  say  the  best  for  the  society 
in  which  he  lives  when  writing  to  an  uncle  by  whose  aid  he  expects  to 
come  into  Parliament.  At  Vienna,  Grenville  complains  that  very  few 
ladies  of  rank  would  allow  him  the  honor  of  their  acquaintance  without 
insisting  on  his  purchasing  it  at  the  loo-table — a  condition  which  would 
not  have  stood  much  in  the  way  of  Charles  Fox  or  Lord  Carlisle,  whose 
confidences  to  George  Selwyn  are  such  as  irresistibly  to  suggest  a  wish 
that  they  were  both  back  at  Eton  in  the  hands  of  a  head-master  who 
knew  his  duty. 


56  THE   EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  II. 

graces  drove  post  all  the  way  from  Paris  to  Lyons  in  order 
to  select  patterns  for  their  embroidered  waistcoats. 

In  one  respect  Fox  did  not  resemble  Pope's  hero.  Unlike 
the  youth  who 

"  Spoiled  his  own  language  and  acquired  no  more," 

he  came  back  from  the  Continent  an  excellent  linguist,  and  a 
better  English  scholar  than  ever.  He  was  fairly  contented 
with  the  knowledge  which,  as  the  fruit  of  his  industry  at  Ox- 
ford, he  had  obtained  of  Greek  and  Latin ;  and  his  standard  was 
not  a  low  one.  He  bade  Virgil  and  Euripides  lie  by  till  such 
time  as  he  could  read  them  again  with  something  of  the  pleas- 
ure of  novelty ;  and  from  the  day  that  he  landed  at  Genoa 
he  flung  himself  into  the  delights  of  Italian  literature  with  all 
the  vehemence  of  his  ardent  nature.  "  For  God's  sake,"  he 
wrote  to  his  friend  Fitzpatrick,  "  learn  Italian  as  fast  as  you 
can,  to  read  Ariosto.  There  is  more  good  poetry  in  Italian 
than  in  all  other  languages  I  understand  put  together.  Make 
haste  and  read  all  these  things,  that  you  may  be  fit  to  talk  to 
Christians."  Every  moment  that  could  be  spared  from  gam- 
ing and  flirting  he  spent  in  devouring  Dante  and  Ariosto,  or 
in  drudging  his  way  through  Guicciardini  and  Davila.  He 
had  a  student's  instinct  for  getting  at  the  heart  of  a  language. 
Like  other  men  who  look  forward  to  reading  with  their  knees 
in  the  fire  or  with  their  elbows  in  the  grass,  he  knew  that  he 
must  begin  with  the  dictionary  and  the  exercise-book.  While 
a  boy,  he  had  as  much  French  as  most  diplomatists  would  think 
sufficient  for  a  lifetime.  Lord  Holland  has  preserved  a  copy 
of  verses  written  by  Charles  at  Eton  which,  in  three  years 
out  of  four,  would  still  win  him  the  prize  in  French  composi- 
tion at  any  of  our  public  schools.1     But  he  was  dissatisfied 

1  When,  in  after-days,  these  verses  were  brought  to  the  notice  of  Fox, 
he  spoke  of  them  as  worthless.  "  I  did  not,"  he  said,  "  at  that  time  know 
the  rules  of  French  versification."  The  subject,  indeed,  of  the  lines  was 
not  likely  to  please  many  besides  his  father ;  for  they  consist  in  a  eu- 
logy on  the  "  digne  citoyen"  Lord  Bute  at  the  expense  of  Chatham,  who 
is  denounced  as  "  un  fourbe  orateur,"  the  idol  and  tyrant  of  a  land  which 
the  poet  blushes  to  call  his  country. 


1749-08.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  57 

with  his  own  proficiency.  "  As  to  French,"  he  says,  "  I  am 
far  from  being  so  thorough  a  master  of  it  as  I  could  wish ;  but 
I  know  so  much  of  it  that  I  could  perfect  myself  at  any  time 
with  very  little  trouble,  especially  if  I  pass  three  or  four  months 
in  France."  First  and  last,  he  passed  a  great  deal  more  than 
three  or  four  months  in  that  seductive  country,  and  few  be- 
sides himself  would  have  spoken  slightingly  of  the  trouble 
which  he  bestowed  on  the  task  of  acquiring  its  language.  He 
adopted  the  useful  custom  of  writing  from  France  in  French 
to  the  friends  with  whom  he  could  take  that  liberty.  Much 
of  what  he  had  to  say  he  put  into  the  shape  of  verses,  over 
the  construction  of  which  he  must  have  expended  no  small 
labor ;  and  any  error  in  rhyme  or  prosody  which  he  suspected 
himself  of  having  committed  in  a  letter  that  had  been  al- 
ready despatched  he  took  care  to  point  out  and  amend  in  the 
next.  His  exertions  were  not  thrown  away.  None  ever  found 
fault  with  his  French  except  Napoleon,  the  purity  of  whose 
own  accent  was  by  no  means  above  criticism.  When  Fox  re- 
visited Paris  after  the  Peace  of  Amiens,  the  survivors  of  the 
eighteenth-century  society,  who  were  venturing  once  more  to 
show  themselves  in  their  old  haunts,  were  astonished  by  the 
spirit  and  correctness  wTith  which  he  reproduced  the  phraseolo- 
gy in  which  President  Henault  talked  to  Madame  du  Deffand 
and  the  Duchesse  de  la  Valliere  in  the  days  before  the  guil- 
lotine had  been  heard  of. 

There  are  some  who  apparently  study  the  histories  of  dis- 
tinguished men  in  order  to  find  illustrations  of  the  theory 
that  fame  in  after-life  does  not  necessarily  depend  upon  habits 
of  work  formed  betimes  and  persistently  maintained.  Read- 
ers of  this  class  will  derive  even  less  than  their  usual  consola- 
tion and  encouragement  from  the  career  of  Fox.  The  third 
Lord  Holland,  who  knew  his  uncle  far  better  than  all  other 
people  together  wTho  have  recorded  their  impressions  of  his 
character,  tells  us  that  the  most  marked  and  enduring  feature 
in  his  disposition  was  his  invincible  propensity  "  to  labor  at 
excellence."  His  rule  in  small  things,  as  in  great,  was  the 
homely  proverb  that  what  is  worth  doing  at  all  is  worth  doing 
well.     His  verses  of  society  were  polished  with  a  care  which 


58  THE   EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  II. 

their  merit  not  unfrequently  repaid.  He  ranked  high  among 
chess-players,  and  was  constantly  and  eagerly  extending  his 
researches  into  the  science  of  the  game.  When  secretary  of 
state,  he  did  something  to  improve  his  hand  by  taking  lessons, 
and  writing  copies  like  a  schoolboy.  At  the  head  of  his  own 
table,  he  helped  the  turbot  and  the  fowls  according  to  the  di- 
rections of  a  treatise  on  carving  which  lay  beside  him  on  the 
cloth.  As  soon  as  he  had  finally  determined  to  settle  in  the 
country,  he  devoted  himself  to  the  art  of  gardening  with  a 
success  to  which  St.  Anne's  Hill  still  bears  agreeable  testi- 
mony. He  could  hold  his  own  at  tennis  after  he  was  well  on 
in  years  and  of  a  bulk  proportioned  to  his  weight  in  the  bal- 
ance of  political  power;  and  when  an  admiring  spectator 
asked  him  how  he  contrived  to  return  so  many  of  the  difficult 
balls,  "  It  is,"  he  replied,  "  because  I  am  a  very  painstaking 
man."  "Whatever  hand  or  mind  or  tongue  found  to  do,  he 
did  it  with  his  might ;  and  he  had  his  reward ;  for  the  prac- 
tice of  working  at  the  top  of  his  forces  became  so  much  a  part 
of  his  nature  that  he  was  never  at  a  loss  when  the  occasion 
demanded  a  sudden  and  exceptional  effort.  A  young  senator, 
who  feels  that  he  has  it  in  him,  eagerly  asks  to  be  told  the 
secret  of  eloquence ;  and  veterans  can  give  him  no  better  re- 
ceipt than  the  humble  advice,  whatever  he  is  about,  always  to 
do  his  utmost.1  It  is  said  that  armies  can  be  disciplined  to 
such  a  point  that  the  soldier  will  find  the  battle-field  a  relaxa- 
tion from  the  hardships  and  restraints  of  the  drill-ground ; 
and  the  orator  who,  when  taken  unawares,  retorts  upon  his 


1  The  collection  of  aphorisms  which  Mr.  Ruskin  composed  for  the  in- 
struction of  a  young  Italian  painter  may  be  studied  with  benefit  by  as- 
pirants in  oratory.  "  Stop,"  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  "  the  moment  you  feel  a 
difficulty,  and  your  drawing  will  be  the  best  you  can  do,  but  you  will 
not  be  able  to  do  another  so  good  to-morrow.  Put  your  full  strength 
out  the  moment  you  feel  a  difficulty,  and  you  will  spoil  your  drawing 
to-day,  but  you  will  do  better  than  your  to-day's  best  to-morrow."  The 
processes  of  true  art  are  much  the  same  in  all  its  branches.  A  public 
speaker  may  learn  more  from  Herr  Klesmer's  discourse  "in  "Daniel  De- 
ronda"  on  the  training  of  a  public  performer  than  from  twenty  professed 
treatises  on  rhetoric. 


1749-08.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  59 

assailant  with  a  shower  of  sentences  so  apt  that  they  might 
each  have  been  coined  for  the  purpose  of  the  moment  has 
purchased  his  enviable  gift  by  many  an  hour  of  unseen  and 
apparently  objectless  labor,  which  few  among  his  audience, 
even  with  such  a  prize  in  prospect,  could  ever  prevail  upon 
themselves  to  undertake. 

In  August,  1768,  Fox  waited  upon  Voltaire  at  his  villa  by 
the  Lake  of  Geneva.  The  old  man  was  very  gracious,  treated 
his  guest  to  chocolate,  and  did  him  the  easy  favor  of  pointing 
out  some  of  his  own  writings  which  had  a  tendency  to  conn- 
teract  the  influence  of  religious  prejudice.  "  Voila,"  said  the 
patriarch,  "  des  livres  dont  il  faut  se  munir."  ■  Charles  had 
just  then  very  little  attention  to  spare  for  theological  contro- 
versy, even  in  the  enticing  guise  which  it  assumes  in  the 
"  Ingenu  "  and  the  "  Philosophical  Dictionary."  With  his 
head  full  of  politics,  he  was  proceeding  homewards  to  com- 
mence the  business  of  his  life.  The  world  in  which  he  found 
himself  on  his  arrival  in  England  differed  so  essentially  from 
our  own  that  it  would  be  a  gross  injustice  to  the  memory  of 
Fox  if  I  were  to  plunge  into  the  narrative  of  his  actions 
without  previously  describing,  to  the  best  of  my  power,  the 
society  in  which  he  moved,  the  moral  atmosphere  which  he 
breathed,  and  the  temptations  by  which  he  was  assailed. 
Never  was  there  a  man  wmose  faults  were  so  largely  those 
of  his  time;  while  his  eminent  merits,  and  enormous  services 
to  the  country,  were  so  peculiarly  his  own.  When  we  com- 
pare the  state  of  public  life  as  he  entered  it  and  as  he  left  it, 
and  when  we  reflect  how  preponderating  a  share  he  cheer- 
fully bore  in  the  gigantic  labors  and  sacrifices  by  which  a 
change  for  the  better  was  gradually  and  painfully  secured, 


1  Fox  took  other  opportunities  of  improving  his  acquaintance  with 
Voltaire,  who  acknowledged  his  next  visit  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Holland, 
the  first  sentences  of  which  run  thus :  "  Yr  son  is  an  English  lad,  and  j 
an  old  frenchman.  He  is  healthy,  and  j  sick.  Yet  j  love  him  with  all 
my  heart,  not  only  for  his  father,  but  for  him  self."  On  this  occasion 
Voltaire  gave  Charles  a  dinner  in  his  "  little  caban,"  where  the  young 
man  was  soon  privileged  to  come  and  go  at  will. 


60  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  II. 

we  shall  confess  that,  besides  his  unquestioned  title  to  an 
affection  which,  after  the  lapse  of  three  quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury, is  still  rather  personal  than  historical,  he  has  a  claim 
to  our  unstinted  gratitude,  and  to  no  scanty  measure  of 
esteem. 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  61 


CHAPTER  III. 

London  Society  at  the  Time  that  Fox  entered  the  Great  World. — Its 
Narrow  Limits  and  Agreeable  Character.  —  Prevalent  Dissipation 
and  Frivolity. — The  Duke  of  Grafton. — Rigby. — Lord  Weymouth. — 
Lord  Sandwich.— Fox  in  the  Inner  Circle  of  Fashion. — Lord  March. — 
Brooks's  Club.  —  Gaming.  —  Extravagance.  —  Drinking  and  Gout.  — 
George  the  Third's  Temperate  and  Hardy  Habits. — State  of  Religion 
among  the  Upper  Classes. — Political  Life  in  1768. — Sinecures. — Pen- 
sions and  Places,  English,  Irish,  and  Colonial.— Other  Forms  of  Cor- 
ruption.— The  Venality  of  Parliament. — Low  Morality  of  Public  Men, 
and  Discontent  of  the  Nation. — Office  and  Opposition. — Fox's  Political 
Teachers. 

Moral  considerations  apart,  no  more  desirable  lot  can  well 
be  imagined  for  a  human  being  than  that  he  should  be  in- 
cluded in  the  ranks  of  a  highly  civilized  aristocracy  at  the 
culminating  moment  of  its  vigor.  A  society  so  broad  and 
strongly  based  that  within  its  own  borders  it  can  safely  per- 
mit absolute  liberty  of  thought  and  speech ;  whose  members 
are  so  numerous  that  they  are  able  to  believe,  with  some 
show  of  reason,  that  the  interests  of  the  State  are  identical 
with  their  own,  and  at  the  same  time  so  privileged  that  they 
are  sure  to  get  the  best  of  everything  which  is  to  be  had,  is 
a  society  uniting,  as  far  as  those  members  are  concerned, 
most  of  the  advantages  and  all  the  attractions  both  of  a  pop- 
ular and  an  oligarchical  form  of  government.  It  is  in  such 
societies  that  existence  has  been  enjoyed  most  keenly,  and 
that  books  have  been  written  which  communicate  a  sense  of 
that  enjoyment  most  vividly  to  posterity.  The  records  of 
other  periods  may  do  more  to  illustrate  the  working  of  po- 
litical forces  and  to  clear  up  the  problems  of  historical  sci- 
ence ;  the  literature  of  other  periods  may  be  richer  in  wealth 
of  thought  and  nobler  in  depth  of  feeling;  but  a  student 
who  loves  to  dwell  upon  times  when  men  lived  so  intensely 
and  wrote  so  joyously  that  their  past  seems  to  us  as  our 


62  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

present  will  never  tire  of  recurring  to  the  Athens  of  Alcibi- 
ades  and  Aristophanes,  the  Rome  of  Mark  Antony  and  Cic- 
ero, and  the  London  of  Charles  Townshend  and  Horace 
Walpole.  The  special  charm  of  the  literature  produced  in 
communities  so  constituted  is  that  in  those  communities,  and 
in  those  alone,  personal  allusion,  the  most  effective  weapon 
in  the  armory  of  letters,  can  be  employed  with  a  certainty  of 
success.  A  few  thousand  people  who  thought  that  the  world 
was  made  for  them,  and  that  all  outside  their  own  fraternity 
were  unworthy  of  notice  or  criticism,  bestowed  upon  each 
other  an  amount  of  attention  quite  inconceivable  to  us  who 
count  our  equals  by  millions.  The  actions,  the  fortunes,  and 
the  peculiarities  of  every  one  who  belonged  to  the  ruling 
class  became  matters  of  such  importance  to  his  fellows  that 
satire  and  gossip  were  elevated  into  branches  of  the  highest 
literary  art.  Every  hit  in  an  Athenian  burlesque  was  rec- 
ognized on  the  instant  by  every  individual  in  an  audience 
which  comprised  the  whole  body  of  free-born  citizens.  The 
names  and  habits  of  every  parasite  and  informer  and  legacy- 
hunter  within  the  circuit  of  the  Seven  Hills  were  accurately 
known  to  every  Roman  who  had  enough  spare  sesterces  to 
purchase  a  manuscript  of  Juvenal.  In  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, in  our  own  country,  the  same  causes  produced  the  same 
results;  and  the  flavor  of  the  immortal  impertinences  which 
two  thousand  years  before  were  directed  against  Pericles  and 
Euripides  may  be  recognized  in  the  letters  which,  when 
George  the  Third  was  young,  were  handed  about  among  a 
knot  of  men  of  fashion  and  family  who  could  never  have 
enough  of  discussing  the  characters  and  ambitions,  the  in- 
comes and  genealogies,  the  scrapes  and  the  gallantries,  of 
everybody  who  had  admission  to  the  circle  within  which 
their  lives  were  passed. 

The  society  pictured  in  these  letters  had  much  the  same  rela- 
tion to  what  is  called  good  society  now  that  the  "  Boar  Hunt " 
by  Velasquez,  in  the  National  Gallery,  with  its  groups  of 
stately  cavaliers,  courteous  to  each  other,  and  unmindful  of 
all  besides,  bears  to  the  scene  of  confused  bustle  and  dubious 
enjoyment  represented  in  the  "Derby  Day  "  of  Mr.  Frith.   So 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  63 

far  from  being  a  vast  and  ill-defined  region,  capable  of  almost 
infinite  expansion,  into  which  anybody  can  work  his  way  who 
has  a  little  money  and  a  great  deal  of  leisure,  and  who  is  will- 
ing to  invest  his  industry  in  the  undertaking,  good  society, 
when  Lord  Chesterfield  was  its  oracle  and  George  Selwyn  its 
father-confessor,  was  enclosed  within  ascertained  and  narrow 
boundaries.  The  extent  of  those  boundaries  was  so  familiar 
to  all  who  were  admitted  and  all  wTho  were  excluded  that  a 
great  lady,  when  she  gave  an  evening-party,  wTould  content 
herself  with  sending  cards  to  the  women,  while  she  left  the 
men  to  judge  for  themselves  wThether  they  had  a  right  to 
come,  or  not.  Within  the  charmed  precincts  there  prevailed 
an  easy  and  natural  mode  of  intercourse  which  in  some  re- 
spects must  have  been  singularly  delightful.  Secure  of  his 
own  position,  and  with  no  desire  to  contest  the  social  claims 
of  others,  a  man  was  satisfied,  and  sometimes  only  too  easily 
satisfied,  to  show  himself  exactly  as  he  was.  There  was  no 
use  in  trying  to  impose  upon  people  who  had  been  his  school- 
fellows at  Eton,  his  brother  -  officers  in  the  Guards,  his  col- 
leagues in  Parliament,  his  partners  at  whist,  his  cronies  at  the 
club,  his  companions  in  a  hundred  revels.  Every  friend  with 
whom  he  lived  was  acquainted  with  every  circumstance  in  his 
career  and  every  turn  in  his  affairs — who  had  jilted  him,  and 
who  had  schemed  for  him ;  how  many  thousands  a  year  had 
been  allowed  him  by  his  father,  and  how  many  hundreds  he 
allowed  his  son ;  how  much  of  his  rent-roll  was  unmortgaged, 
and  how  much  wood  was  left  uncut  in  his  plantations ;  what 
chance  he  had  of  getting  heard  at  two  in  the  morning  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  what  influence  he  possessed  over  the 
corporation  of  his  neighboring  borough.  Unable  to  dazzle 
those  for  whose  good  opinion  he  cared,  it  only  remained  for 
him  to  amuse  them;  and  the  light  and  elegant  effusions  in 
which  the  fine  gentlemen  of  White's  and  Arthur's  rivalled, 
and,  as  some  think,  excelled,  the  wittiest  pens  of  France  re- 
main to  prove  of  what  Englishmen  are  capable  when  they  de- 
vote the  best  of  their  energy  to  the  business  of  being  frivo- 
lous. 

The  frivolity  of  the  last  century  was  not  confined  to  the 


64  'THE  EAKLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

youthful,  the  foolish,  or  even  to  the  idle.  There  never  will 
be  a  generation  which  cannot  supply  a  parallel  to  the  lads 
who,  in  order  that  they  might  the  better  hear  the  nonsense 
which  they  were  talking  across  a  tavern  table,  had  Pall  Mall 
laid  down  with  straw  at  the  cost  of  fifty  shillings  a  head  for 
the  party ;  or  to  the  younger  brother  who  gave  half  a  guinea 
every  morning  to  the  flower-woman  who  brought  him  a  nose- 
gay of  roses  for  his  button -hole.1  These  follies  are  of  all 
times ;  but  what  was  peculiar  to  the  period  when  Charles  Fox 
took  his  seat  in  Parliament  and  his  place  in  society  consisted 
in  the  phenomenon  (for  to  our  ideas  it  is  nothing  else)  that 
men  of  age  and  standing,  of  strong  mental  powers  and  refined 
cultivation,  lived  openly,  shamelessly,  and  habitually,  in  the 
face  of  all  England,  as  no  one  who  had  any  care  for  his  repu- 
tation would  now  live  during  a  single  fortnight  of  the  year  at 
Monaco.  As  a  sequel  to  such  home-teaching  as  Lord  Holland 
was  qualified  to  impart,  the  young  fellow,  on  his  entrance  into 
the  great  world,  was  called  upon  to  shape  his  life  according 
to  the  models  that  the  public  opinion  of  the  day  held  up  for 
his  imitation ;  and  the  examples  which  he  saw  around  him 
would  have  tempted  cooler  blood  than  his,  and  turned  even  a 
more  tranquil  brain.  The  ministers  who  guided  the  State, 
whom  the  king  delighted  to  honor,  who  had  the  charge  of 
public  decency  and  order,  who  named  the  fathers  of  the 
Church,  whose  duty  it  was  (to  use  the  words  of  their  mon- 
arch) "  to  prevent  any  alterations  in  so  essential  a  part  of  the 
Constitution  as  everything  that  relates  to  religion," 2  were  con- 
spicuous for  impudent  vice,  for  daily  dissipation,  for  pranks 
which  would  have  been  regarded  as  childish  and  unbecoming 
by  the  cornets  of  a  crack  cavalry  regiment  in  the  worst  days 
of  military  license.  The  Duke  of  Grafton  flaunted  at  Ascot 
races  with  a  mistress  whom  he  had  picked  up  in  the  street, 
and  paraded  her  at  the  opera  when  the  royal  party  were  in 
their  box.3     So  public  an  outrage  on  the  part  of  the  first  ser- 

1  Walpole  to  Mann,  September  9, 1771 ;  May  C,  1770. 

2  The  king  to  Lord  North,  April  », 1772. 

8  Junius  has  made  the  Duke  of  Grafton  and  Miss  Nancy  Parsons  almost 


Chap.  III.]  CHxUiLES  JAMES  FOX.  65 

vant  of  the  crown  roused  a  momentary  indignation  even  in 
hardened  minds.  "  Libertine  men,"  writes  an  active  politician 
in  April,  1768,  "  are  as  much  offended  as  prudish  women  ;  and 
it  is  impossible  he  should  think  of  remaining  miriister."  But 
George  the  Third  was  willing  that  the  Duke  of  Grafton 
should  bring  whom  he  pleased  under  the  same  roof  as  the 
queen,  so  long  as  he  kept  such  people  as  Rockingham  and 
Burke  and  Richmond  out  of  the  cabinet.  Where  the  king: 
gave  his  confidence,  it  was  not  for  his  subjects  to  play  the 
Puritan,  or,  at  any  rate,  for  those  among  his  subjects  who  lived 
upon  the  good  graces  of  the  prime-minister ;  and  in  the  fol- 
lowing August,  when  Miss  Parsons  showed  herself  at  the 
Ridotto,  she  was  followed  about  by  as  large  a  crowd  as  ever 
of  smart  gentlemen  who  wanted  commissionerships  for  them- 
selves and  deaneries  for  their  younger  brothers.1 

In  point  of  both  the  lesser  and  the  greater  morals  there  was 
little  to  choose  between  the  head  of  the  government  and  his 
subordinates.  The  paymaster  of  the  forces  was  Rigby,  a  man 
of  whom  it  may  be  literally  said  that  the  only  merit  he  pos-  / 
sessed,  or  cared  to  claim,  was  that  he  drank  fair.  This  virtue  v 
had  stood  him  in  good  stead  when  secretary  to  the  Duke  of 
Bedford  in  Ireland,  to  whom  he  was  invaluable  for  the  skill 
with  which  he  conducted  the  operation  of  washing  away  dis- 
affection in  floods  of  the  viceregal  claret.  He  took  care  to 
keep  the  lord-lieutenant  informed  of  the  zeal  which  he  ex- 
pended on  this  important  service.  "  We  liked  each  other," 
he  writes  on  one  such  occasion,  "well  enough  not  to  part  till 
three  in  the  morning ;  long  before  which  time  the  company 
was  reduced  to  a  tete-a-tete,  except  one  other,  drunk  and  asleep 
in  the  corner  of  the  room."  Rigby,  however,  in  the  matter 
of  sobriety,  did  not  observe  what  Burke  calls  "the  morality 
of  geography."     As  lie  drank  at  Dublin,  so  he  drank  in  Lon- 

as  famous  as  Antony  and  Cleopatra ;  but  the  most  discreditable  features 
of  the  story  are  known  by  the  casual  and  somewhat  contemptuous  com- 
ments of  a  number  of  men  who  socially  were  the  prime-minister's  equals, 
and  who  had  no  sufficient  motive,  political  or  personal,  for  depicting  him 
to  each  other  as  worse  than  he  was. 

1  Mr.  Whately  to  Mr.  Grenville,  April  22  and  August  24, 1768. 

5 


66  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  III. 

don,  and  as  he  drank  in  London,  so  lie  drank  in  the  country. 
A  letter  of  Garrick's  almost  implies  that  the  paymaster  fixed 
his  residence  among  the  swamps  of  Essex  in  order  that  he 
might  have  an  excuse  for  using  brandy  as  the  rest  of  the 
world  used  small-beer.  With  no  lack  of  mother-wit,  and  pre- 
pared, according  to  the  character  of  his  company,  to  please  by 
the  coarsest  jollity  or  the  most  insinuating  good-breeding,  he 
was  a  dangerous  guide  to  the  sons  and  nephews  of  his  own 
contemporaries.  When  he  first  appeared  as  a  man  about  town, 
he  was  detected  as  having  been  at  the  bottom  of  at  least  one 
discreditable  frolic  ;'  and  he  did  not  improve  with  years.  At 
the  Pay-office,  in  which  paradise  of  jobbery  he  contrived  to 
settle  himself  as  a  permanent  occupant,  he  kept  open  house 
for  the  members  of  several  successive  administrations,  accord- 
ing to  his  own  notions  of  what  open  house  should  mean.  But 
the  cup  of  his  excesses,  to  employ  a  metaphor  wThich  he  would 
have  appreciated,  was  at  length  full ;  and  he  lived  to  learn,  in 
impoverishment  and  disgrace,  that  a  purer  generation  had 
drawn  somewhat  tighter  than  in  the  halcyon  days  of  Lord 
Holland  the  limits  within  which  public  money  might  be 
diverted  to  the  maintenance  of  private  debauchery. 

When  the  Duke  of  Grafton  was  at  the  Treasury,  the  seals 
were  held  by  Lord  Weymouth,  the  son  of  Earl  Granville's 
daughter.  With  more  than  his  grandfather's  capacity  for 
liquor,  he  had  inherited  a  fair  portion  of  his  abilities ;  and 
anybody  who  cared  to  sit  up  with  the  secretary  of  state  till 

1  Sir  Charles  Hanbury  Williams  gave  George  Selwyn  a  sad  account  of 
a  young  Hobart,  whom  the  latter  was  trying  to  keep  out  of  mischief. 
"  The  moment  your  back  was  turned  he  flew  out ;  went  to  Lady  Tanker- 
ville's  drum-major,  having  unfortunately  dined  that  day  with  Rigby, 
who  plied  his  head  with  too  many  bumpers,  and  also  made  him  a  pres- 
ent of  some  Chinese  crackers.  Armed  in  this  manner,  he  entered  the  as- 
sembly, gave  a  string  of  four-and-twenty  crackers  to  Lady  Lucy  Clinton, 
and  bid  her  put  it  in  the  candle,  which  she  very  innocently  did.  When 
the  first  went  off,  she  threw  the  rest  on  the  tea-table,  where,  one  after  an- 
other, they  all  went  off,  with  much  noise  and  not  a  little  stink.  Lady 
Lucy  was  very  plentifully  abused,  and  Mr.  Hobart  had  his  share.  Few 
women  will  courtesy  to  him,  and  I  question  if  he'll  ever  lead  anybody  to 
their  chair  again  as  long  as  he  lives." 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  67 

the  hours  were  no  longer  small  might  obtain  a  fair  notion 
how  Carteret  used  to  talk  towards  the  end  of  his  second  bot- 
tle. It  would  have  been  well  for  Lord  Weymouth  if  his 
nights  had  been  consumed  exclusively  in  drinking,  for  he 
was  an  ardent  and  most  unlucky  gambler,  and  by  the  age  of 
one-and-thirty  he  had  played  away  his  fortune,  his  credit,  and 
his  honor.  His  house  swarmed  with  bailiffs ;  and  when  he 
sought  refuge  at  the  club,  he  found  himself  among  people 
whose  money  he  had  tried  to  win  without  having  any  of  his 
own  to  lose,  and  who  had  told  him  their  opinion  of  his  con- 
duct in  terms  which  he  was  not  in  a  position,  and  (as  some 
suspected)  not  of  a  nature,  to  resent.  He  was  on  the  point  of 
levanting  for  France  when,  as  a  last  resource,  his  grandfa- 
ther's friends  bethought  them  that  he  had  not  yet  tried  pub- 
lic life.  "He  must  have  bread,  my  lord,"  wrote  Junius; 
"  or,  rather,  he  must  have  wine ;"  and,  as  it  wTas  convenient 
that  his  first  services  to  the  State  should  be  rendered  at  a 
distance  from  the  scene  of  his  earlier  exploits,  he  was  ap- 
pointed Lord-lieutenant  of  Ireland.  The  Dublin  tradesmen, 
however,  did  not  relish  the  prospect  of  having  a  bankrupt 
nobleman  quartered  upon  them  for  five  or  six  years,  in  order 
that  at  the  end  of  that  time  he  might  be  able  to  show  his 
face  again  at  White's.  The  spirit  which,  fifty  years  before, 
had  refused  to  put  up  with  the  bad  halfpence  of  the  domi- 
nant country  again  began  to  show  itself;  Lord  Weymouth's 
nomination  was  rescinded  ;  and,  to  console  him  for  the  rebuff, 
he  was  made  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Northern  Depart- 
ment, and  intrusted  with  half  the  work  that  is  now  done  by 
the  Foreign  Office,  and  with  the  undivided  charge  of  the  in- 
ternal administration  of  the  kingdom.  He  did  not  pay  his 
new  duties  the  compliment  of  making  the  very  slightest  al- 
teration in  his  habits.  He  still  boozed  till  daylight,  and  dozed 
into  the  afternoon ;  and  his  public  exertions  were  confined  to 
occasional  speeches,  which  his  admirers  extolled  as  preternat- 
urally  sagacious,  and  which  his  severest  critics  admitted  to  be 
pithy.  "  If  I  paid  nobody,"  wrote  Walpole,  "  and  went  drunk 
to  bed  every  morning  at  six,  I  might  expect  to  be  called  out 
of  bed  by  two  in  the  afternoon  to  save  the  nation  and  gov- 


68  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

ern  the  House  of  Lords  by  two  or  three  sentences  as  pro- 
found and  short  as  the  proverbs  of  Solomon.'' 

Lord  Weymouth's  successor  as  secretary  of  state  was  the 
most  eminent,  and  possibly  the  most  disreputable,  member  of 
the  Bedford  connection.  The  Earl  of  Sandwich  was  excellent 
as  the  chief  of  a  department.  He  rose  about  the  time  that 
his  predecessor  retired  to  rest,  and  remained,  till  what  then 
was  a  late  dinner-hour,  closely  absorbed  in  methodical  and 
most  effectual  labor.  "  Sandwich's  industry  to  carry  a  point 
in  view,"  says  Walpole,  "  was  so  remarkable  that  the  world 
mistook  it  for  abilities ;"  and  if  genius  has  been  rightly  de- 
fined as  the  capability  of  taking  trouble,  the  world  was  not 
far  wrong.  Like  ajl  great  administrators,  he  loved  his  own 
way,  and  rarely  failed  to  get  it ;  but  outside  the  walls  of  his 
office  his  way  was  seldom  or  never  a  good  one.  He  shocked 
even  his  own  generation  by  the  immorality  of  his  private 
life,  if  such  a  term  can  be  applied  to  the  undisguised  and  un- 
abashed libertinism  that  he  carried  to  the  very  verge  of  a 
tomb  which  did  not  close  on  him  until  he  had  misspent  three 
quarters  of  a  century.  lie  survived  a  whole  succession  of 
scandals,  the  least  flagrant  of  which  would  have  been  fatal  to 
any  one  but  him.  Nothing  substantially  injured  him  in  the 
estimation  of  his  countrymen,  because  no  possible  revelation 
could  make  them  think  worse  of  him  than  they  thought  al- 
ready. When  he  was  advanced  in  age,  and  at  the  head  of 
what  was  just  then  the  most  important  branch  of  the  public 
service,  he  was  involved  in  one  of  those  tragedies  of  the  po- 
lice-court by  means  of  which  the  retribution  of  publicity 
sometimes  overtakes  the  voluptuary  who  imagines  that  his 
wealth  has  fenced  him  securely  from  the  consequences  of  his 
sin.  But  no  coroner's  inquest,  or  cross-examination  at  the 
Old  Bailey,  could  elicit  anything  which  would  add  a  shade  to 
such  a  character.  The  blood  had  been  washed  from  the  steps 
of  the  theatre ;  the  gallows  had  been  erected  and  taken  down  ; 
the  poor  creature  who  had  been  the  object  of  a  murderous  rival- 
ry was  quiet  in  her  grave ; 1  and  the  noble  earl  was  still  at  the 

1  "  The  poor  assassin  was  executed  yesterday.     The  same  day  Charles 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  69 

Admiralty,  giving  Lis  unhonored  name  to  the  discoveries  of 
our  most  celebrated  navigator,  and  fitting  out  expeditions 
which  might  reduce  the  Puritans  of  New  England  and  the 
Quakers  of  Philadelphia,  to  the  necessity  of  contributing  to 
the  taxes  out  of  which  he  replenished  his  cellar  and  his  se- 
raglio. Corrupt,  tyrannical,  and  brazen-faced  as  a  politician, 
and  destitute,  as  was  seen  in  his  conduct  to  Wilkes,  of  that 
last  relic  of  virtue,  fidelity  towards  the  partners  of  his  secret 
and  pleasant  vices,  political  satire  itself  tried  in  vain  to  exag- 
gerate the  turpitude  of  Sandwich. 

"  Too  infamous  to  have  a  friend  ; 
Too  bad  for  bad  men  to  commend, 
Or  good  to  name  ;  beneath  whose  weight 
Earth  groans ;  who  hath  been  spared  by  fate 
Only  to  show,  on  mercy's  plan, 
How  far  and  long  God  bears  with  man." 


Even  this  masterpiece  of  truculence  was  no  libel  upon  one 
who  had  still  eight-and-twenty  years  to  pass  in  living  up  to 
the  character  which  Churchill  had  given  him  in  his  wrath. 

"  Such,"  cried  Junius,  "  is  the  council  by  which  the  best  of 
sovereigns  is  advised,  and  the  greatest  nation  upon  earth  gov- 
erned." 1  The  humiliation  and  resentment  wTith  which  decent 
Englishmen  saw  this  train  of  Bacchanals  scouring  through  the 
high  places  of  the  State  is  a  key  to  the  unexampled  popular- 
ity of  that  writer  who,  under  twenty  different  signatures 
drawn  from  the  pages  of  Plutarch  and  Tacitus,  lashed  the 
self-will  and  self-delusion  of  the  king,  and  the  rapacity  and 
dissoluteness  of  his  ministers.  The  spectacle  of  "  the  Duke 
of  Grafton,  like  an  apprentice,  thinking  that  the  world  should 
be  postponed  to  a  horse-race,  and  the  Bedfords  not  caring 
what  disgraces  we  undergo,  while  each  of  them,  has  three 
thousand  pounds  a  year  and  three  thousand  bottles  of  claret 


Fox  moved  for  the  removal  of  Lord  Sandwich,  but  was  beaten  by  a  large 
majority;  for  in  Parliament  the  ministers  can  still  gain  victories"  (Wal- 
pole  to  Mann,  April  20, 1779). 

1  The  letter  containing  this  sentence  is  signed  "  Atticus ;"  but  it  was 
published  among  the  works  of  Junius,  and  is  indisputably  from  his  pen. 


0/  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

and  champagne," '  did  more  than  his  own  somewhat  grandiose 
eloquence  and  over-labored  sarcasm  to  endow  Junius  with  a 
power  in  the  country  second  only  to  that  of  Chatham,  and  a 
fame  hardly  less  universal  than  the  notoriety  of  Wilkes.  But 
in  the  eyes  of  George  the  Third  the  righteous  anger  of  his 
people  was  only  another  form  of  disloyalty.  Intent,  heart  and 
soul,  on  his  favorite  scheme  for  establishing  a  system  of  per- 
sonal rule,  under  which  all  the  threads  of  administration 
should  centre  in  the  royal  closet,  he  entertained  an  instinc- 
tive antipathy  to  high-minded  and  independent  men  of  all 
political  parties.  He  selected  his  instruments  among  those 
who  were  willing  to  be  subservient  because  they  had  no  self- 
respect  to  lose.  "  His  Majesty,"  wrote  Burke,  "  never  was  in 
better  spirits.  He  has  got  a  ministry  weak  and  dependent; 
and,  what  is  better,  willing  to  continue  so."  2  Serenely  satis- 
fied with  his  success  in  weeding  out  of  the  government  every- 
body whom  the  nation  trusted  and  esteemed,  he  felt  it  an  in- 
sult to  himself  that  his  subjects  should  murmur  when  they 
saw  honest  and  patriotic  statesmen  forbidden  to  devote  their 
talents  to  the  service  of  the  public,  while  the  prosperity  and 
honor  of  the  country  were  committed  to  the  charge  of  men 
not  one  of  whom  any  private  person  in  his  senses  would 
choose  as  a  steward  or  receive  as  a  son-in-law.  According  to 
his  Majesty's  theory,  his  favor  was  a  testimonial  which  the 
world  was  bound  to  accept.  The  royal  confidence  could  turn 
Sir  Francis  Dashwood  into  a  sage  and  Lord  George  Sackville 
into  a  hero ;  could  make  a  Cato  the  censor  of  the  Earl  of 
Sandwich,  and  a  Scipio  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton.  Among  the 
innumerable  evil  results  of  George  the  Third's  policy,  not 
the  least  disastrous  was  that  the  supporters  of  that  policy  con- 
sidered themselves  bound  to  maintain  that  men  like  Lord 
"Weymouth* and  Rigby  were  no  worse  than  men  like  the  Duke 
of  Richmond  and  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham.  Personal  mo- 
rality became  a  party  question ;  the  standard  of  virtue  was 


1  Walpole  to  Conway,  June  16,  1768.     The  allusion  to  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  has  been  softened  by  the  omission  of  three  words. 

2  Burke  to  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham,  August  1, 1767. 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  71 

lowered  to  meet  the  convenience  of  the  court ;  and  whoever 
was  desirous  of  evincing  his  attachment  to  the  king  was  in  a 
hurry  to  assure  mankind  that  he  condoned  the  vices  of  the 
minister. 

It  must  have  been  an  edifying  lesson  in  ethics  for  the  Cam- 
bridge undergraduates  when  the  Earl  of  Sandwich  put  him- 
self up  for  the  high-stewardship  of  their  university,  within 
six  weeks  of  the  time  that  his  initiation  into  the  orgies  and 
blasphemies  of  Medmenham  Abbey  had  become  matter  for 
comment  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  England.1 
The  post  had  been  vacated  by  the  death  of  Lord  Hardwicke ; 
and,  scandalized  by  the  prospect  of  such  a  successor  to  an  of- 
fice wThich  his  father  had  dignified,  the  deceased  nobleman's 
eldest  son  announced  himself  as  a  rival  candidate.  The  more 
respectable  masters  of  arts  declared  their  preference  for  a  peer 
whose  literary  tastes  and  exemplary  conduct  fairly  entitled 
him  to  an  academical  compliment,  and  asked  each  other  what 
single  qualification  his  opponent  possessed  which  could  recom- 
mend him  to  the  suffrages  of  a  corporate  body  pledged  to  the 
encouragement  of  religious  education.  Gray,  in  a  very  supe- 
rior specimen  of  that  class  of  pasquinades  wdiich  a  hot  con- 
test at  the  university  never  fails  to  produce,  endeavored  to  es- 
tablish a  connection  between  the  Earl  of  Sandwich  and  Bibli- 

1  Medmenham  Abbey,  formerly  a  convent  of  Cistercian  monks,  was  a 
ruin  finely  situated  on  the  Thames,  near  Mario w.  A  society  of  dissipated 
men  of  fashion  who  dubbed  themselves  "  The  Franciscans,"  after  their 
founder,  Sir  Francis  Dashwood,  repaired  and  fitted  up  the  buildings  and 
laid  out  the  grounds  as  a  retreat  where  they  might  indulge  with  impu- 
nity in  their  peculiar  notions  of  enjoyment.  Little  is  known  with  certain- 
ty about  their  proceedings ;  but  that  little  is  more  than  enough.  Selwyn, 
as  an  undergraduate,  was  expelled  from  Oxford  with  every  mark  of  ig- 
nominy for  an  act  of  profane  buffoonery  which,  in  an  aggravated  form, 
was  performed  nightly  at  Medmenham  by  the  Chancellor  of  the  Excheq- 
uer for  the  amusement  of  a  circle  of  privy-councillors  and  members  of 
Parliament.  The  door  of  the  abbey  may  still  be  seen  surmounted  by 
the  motto  "Fay  ce  que  voudras."  The  other  inscriptions  which  dis- 
graced the  natural  beauty  of  the  groves  and  gardens  survive  only  in 
books  which  fortunately  no  one,  except  an  historian,  is  under  any  obli- 
gation to  consult. 


72  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IU. 

cal  theology,  on  the  ground  that  a  precedent  for  most  of  his 
vices  could  be  found  in  the  history  of  one  or  another  of  the 
patriarchs.  But  Lord  Hardwicke's  adherents  soon  found  that 
the  matter  was  beyond  a  joke.  Sandwich,  who  was  the  most 
consummate  electioneerer  of  the  day,  left  his  character  to 
take  care  of  itself,  and  applied  all  his  activity  and  experience 
to  the  familiar  business  of  getting  votes.  He  bribed ;  he 
promised ;  he  canvassed  every  country  clergyman  who  had 
kept  his  name  on  the  books.  He  wrote  fawning  letters  to 
men  of  his  own  rank,  begging  them  to  exert  their  influence 
over  their  private  chaplains  and  the  incumbents  and  expect- 
ants of  the  livings  which  were  in  their  gift.  He  fetched  one 
voter  out  of  a  mad-house,  and  another  all  the  way  from  the 
Isle  of  Man  ;  and  such  were  the  ill-feeling  and  confusion  which 
he  created  in  university  society  that  his  own  cousins,  who  had 
gone  down  from  London  to  do  what  they  could  for  him  among 
their  college  acquaintances,  freely  expressed  their  disgust  at 
finding  the  Cambridge  senate  treated  like  a  constituency  of 
pot  wallopers.  When  the  poll  closed,  both  sides  claimed  a 
majority  of  one.  The  undergraduates,  who  were  for  Lord 
Hardwicke  to  a  man,  burst  into  the  senate-house,  elected  one 
of  their  own  number  high  steward,  and  chaired  him  as  the 
representative  of  their  favorite ;  and  when,  in  the  course  of 
the  next  month,  Sandwich  dined  with  the  fellows  of  Trinity, 
the  students  rose  from  their  seats  and  quitted  the  hall  in  a 
body  as  soon  as  he  had  taken  his  place  at  the  high  table.  But 
the  self-seeking  and  sycophancy  of  their  elders  and  instructors 
were  proof  against  any  conceivable  rebuke.  Four  years  after- 
wards, at  a  time  when  the  Duke  of  Grafton  was  at  once  the 
greatest  dispenser  of  patronage  and  the  most  notorious  evil 
liver  in  the  kingdom,  the  chancellorship  of  Cambridge  hap- 
pened to  fall  vacant ;  and  the  young  prime-minister  wTas  select- 
ed to  preside  over  a  university  which,  if  he  had  been  in  statu 
papillari,  the  proctors  wrould  soon  have  made  too  hot  to  hold 
him.  Well  might  Junius  congratulate  his  grace  on  his  ami- 
cable relations  with  "  that  seat  of  learning  which,  in  contem- 
plation of  the  system  of  your  life,  the  comparative  purity  of 
your  manners  with  those  of  your  high  steward,  and  a  thousand 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  73 

other  recommending  circumstances,  has  chosen  you  to  encour- 
age the  growing  virtue  of  their  youth  and  to  preside  over 
their  education."  1 

There  is  no  form  of  personal  example  more  sure  to  be  ob- 
served and  copied  than  that  which  a  political  leader  presents 
to  the  younger  portion  of  his  followers ;  and  it  may  wTell  be 
believed  that  Charles  Fox,  entering  public  life  at  an  age  when 
in  our  generation  he  would  still  be  a  freshman  at  college,  was 
not  likely  to  get  much  good  by  studying  the  patterns  in  fash- 
ion among  the  party  to  which  Lord  Holland  ordained  that 
he  should  belong.     Youth  as  he  was,  and  absolutely  in  the 


1  The  Duke  of  Grafton  was  chosen  Chancellor  of  Cambridge  in  July, 
17G9.  Gray  stooped  to  compose  the  words  of  an  ode  which  was  per- 
formed at  the  installation.  A  comparison  between  this  production  and 
his  squib  on  Lord  Sandwich  goes  far  to  bear  out  the  dictum  of  his  old 
pupil,  Horace  Walpole,  that  Gray's  natural  turn  was  for  "things  of  hu- 
mor." It  is  melancholy  to  find  the  author  of  "The  Bard  "  invoking  all 
the  heroes  and  benefactors  of  the  university — Milton,  Newton, 

"  Great  Edward  with  the  lilies  on  his  brow 
From  haughty  Gallia  torn," 

11  sad  Chatillon  and  princely  Clare,"  and  "  either  Henry," 

"The  murdered  saint,  and  the  majestic  lord 
That  broke  the  bonds  of  Rome," 

to  welcome  a  nobleman  who  would  have  found  himself  much  more  at 
home  with  Poins  and  Pistol  and  Mrs.  Quickly  than  in  the  august  com- 
pany which  the  poet  provided  for  him.  The  very  depth  of  incongruity 
was  sounded  in  the  passage, 

"  Hence  avaunt— 'tis  holy  ground — 
Comus  and  his  midnight  crew !" 

An  injunction  which,  if  obeyed,  would  have  prevented  most  of  the  prime- 
minister's  colleagues  from  being  present  at  the  installation  of  their  chief. 
It  was  long  before  Gray  heard  the  last  of  his  ode,  every  line  of  which  ap- 
peared to  be  written  with  a  view  to  parody.  The  wits  of  the  Opposition 
took  special  delight  in  illustrating  his  assertion  that  the  muse 

"  No  vulgar  praise,  no  venal  incense,  flings," 

by  reminding  the  world  that  the  Duke  of  Grafton  had  appointed  him 
professor  of  history  at  Cambridge  in  the  course  of  the  previous  twelve- 
month. 


74  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

hands  of  a  parent  whose  fascinating  manners  aided  and  dis- 
guised an  uncommon  force  of  will,  and  to  whom  every  corner 
of  the  great  world  was  intimately  known,  he  had  little  choice 
in  this  or  in  any  other  vital  matter.  His  bench  in  Parlia- 
ment was  ready  for  him,  and  his  niche  in  society.  Few  have 
had  the  downward  path  made  smoother  before  them,  or  strewn 
with  brighter  flowers  and  more  deadly  berries.  He  was  re- 
ceived with  open  arms  by  all  that  was  most  select  and  least 
censorious  in  London.  Those  barriers  that  divide  the  outer 
court  from  the  inner  sanctum — barriers  within  which  Burke 
and  Sheridan  never  stepped,  and  which  his  own  father  with 
difficulty  surmounted — did  not  exist  for  him.  Like  Byron, 
Fox  had  no  occasion  to  seek  admission  into  what  is  called  the 
highest  circle,  but  was  part  of  it  from  the  first.1  Instead  of 
being  tolerated  by  fine  gentlemen,  he  was  one  of  themselves 
— hand  and  glove  with  every  noble  rake  who  filled  his  pock- 
ets from  the  Exchequer  and  emptied  them  over  the  hazard- 
table  ;  and  smiled  on  by  all  the  dowagers  and  maids  of  honor 
as  to  the  state  of  whose  jointures  and  complexions  our  envoy 
at  Florence  was  kept  so  regularly  and  minutely  informed.  It 
would  be  unchivalrous  to  revive  the  personal  history  of  too 
many  among  the  fair  dames  to  whom,  and  about  whom,  Wal- 
pole  indited  his  letters,  even  though  a  century  has  elapsed 
since  they  were  laid  elsewhere  than  in  their  husband's  family 
vault.2  What  were  the  morals  of  the  bolder  sex  among  Lord 
Holland's  friends  may  be  gathered  from  the  correspondence 
of  the  Earl  of  March,  in  which  a  man  past  forty  describes  to 
a  man  of  nearly  fifty  the  life  which,  without  affectation  of 

1  "  I  liked  the  dandies,"  said  Byron.  "  They  were  always  civil  to  me, 
though  in  general  they  disliked  literary  people.  The  truth  is  that, 
though  I  gave  up  the  business  early,  I  had  a  tinge  of  dandyism  in  my 
minority,  and  retained  enough  of  it  to  conciliate  the  great  ones." 

2  The  foot-notes  to  Walpole's  "  Correspondence,"  and  the  short  per- 
sonal histories  in  Selwyn's  "  Memoirs,"  leave  on  the  mind  of  the  reader 
an  impression  that,  among  the  ladies  of  their  set,  the  usual  destiny  was 
in  France  to  be  guillotined  and  in  England  to  be  divorced.  "Augustus 
Hervey,"  writes  Walpole,  "  asked  Lord  Bolingbroke  t'other  day  who  was 
his  proctor,  as  he  would  have  asked  for  his  tailor." 


Chai>.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  75 

concealment,  was  led  by  persons  high  in  rank,  rich  in  official 
employments,  well  seen  at  court,  and  to  whom  every  door  in 
Mayfair  was  as  freely  open  as  to  young  Lord  Hardwicke  or 
old  Lord  Mansfield.  March  was  in  no  sense  one  of  those 
whom  the  gods  loved.  As  Duke  of  Queensberry,  at  nearer 
ninety  than  eighty  years  of  age,  he  was  still  rolling  in  wealth, 
still  wallowing  in  sin,  and  regarded  by  his  countrymen  as  one 
whom  it  was  hardly  decent  to  name,  because  he  did  not  choose, 
out  of  respect  for  the  public  opinion  of  1808,  to  discontinue  a 
mode  of  existence  which  in  1768  was  almost  a  thing  of  course 
among  the  men  to  whose  care  and  guidance  Lord  Holland  in- 
trusted the  unformed  character  of  his  idolized  boy.1 

What  a  mere  boy  he  was  when  his  father,  as  if  ambitious 
of  making  him  not  less  invulnerable  to  shame  than  himself, 
plunged  him  into  the  flood  of  town  dissipation  as  suddenly 
and  as  completely  as  Achilles  was  dipped  in  Styx,  may  be 
judged  by  the  date  at  which  his  name  appears"  in  the  books 
of  Brooks's.  This  society,  the  most  famous  political  club  that 
will  ever  have  existed  in  England — because,  before  any  note- 
worthy rival  was  in  the  field,  our  politics  had  already  out- 
grown St.  James's  Street — was  not  political  in  its  origin.  In 
the  first  list  of  its  members  the  Duke  of  Grafton  and  Lord 
Weymouth  are  shown  side  by  side  with  the  Duke  of  Rich- 
mond and  the  Duke  of  Portland.2    Brooks's  took  its  rise  from 

1  The  Duke  of  Queensberry  is  the  crucial  instance  among  bad  men,  as 
Samuel  Johnson  is  the  crucial  instance  among  the  good,  that  the  dread 
of  the  undiscovered  future  has  no  necessary  connection  with  the  con- 
sciousness of  an  ill-spent  life.  Amidst  a  great  deal  in  the  received  ac- 
count of  his  last  days  which  may  be  charitably  set  down  as  fabulous, 
this  mucli  is  clear,  that  he  met  death  with  well-bred  indifference. 

2  The  rules  of  admission  were  evidently  inspired  by  the  caution  of  so- 
cial, and  not  political,  prudence.  The  ballot  took  place  between  eleven 
at  night  and  one  in  the  morning ;  a  single  black  ball  excluded ;  and  a 
member  of  Brooks's  who  joined  any  other  club  except  White's  was  at 
once  struck  off  the  books.  The  establishment  was  formed  by  one  Almack, 
a  wine-merchant,  who  was  strictly  enjoined  to  "  sell  no  wines,  that  the 
club  approves  of,  out  of  the  house."  Almack  was  soon  succeeded  by  Mr. 
Brooks.  The  present  house  was  built  on  the  site  of  the  old  one  in  1778, 
and  not  long  afterwards  Brooks, 


76  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

the  inclination  of  men  who  moved  in  the  same  social  orbit 
to  live  together  more  freely  and  familiarly  than  was  compati- 
ble with  the  publicity  of  a  coffee-house ;  and  how  free  and 
familiar  was  the  life  of  marquises  and  cabinet  ministers,  when 
no  one  was  there  to  watch  them,  the  club  rules  most  agreeably 
testify.  Dinner  was  served  at  half-past  four,  and  the  bill  was 
brought  in  at  seven.  Supper  began  at  eleven  and  ended  at 
half  an  hour  after  midnight.  The  cost  of  the  dinner  was 
eight  shillings  a  head,  and  of  the  supper  six;  and  any  one 
who  had  been  present  during  any  part  of  the  meal  hours  paid 
his  share  of  the  wine,  in  accordance  with  that  old  law  of 
British  conviviality  which  so  long  held  good  in  the  commer- 
cial room,  and  which  has  not  yet  died  out  from  the  bar  mess. 
~No  gaming  was  allowed  over  the  decanters  and  glasses,  "  ex- 
cept tossing  up  for  reckonings,"  under  penalty  of  standing 
treat  for  the  whole  party ;  and  at  cards  or  hazard  no  one 
might  stake  on  credit,  nor  borrow  from  any  of  the  players  or 
bystanders.  But  with  these  regulations  began  and  ended  all 
the  restraint  which  the  club  imposed,  or  affected  to  impose, 
upon  the  gambling  propensities  of  its  members.  The  rule 
about  ready  money  was  soon  a  dead  letter;  and  if  ever  a 
difficulty  was  made,  Mr.  Brooks,  to  his  cost,  was  always  at 
hand  with  the  few  hundred  guineas  which  were  required  to 
spare  any  of  his  patrons  the  annoyance  of  leaving  a  well- 
placed  chair  at  the  faro-bank  or  a  well-matched  rubber  of 
whist.1     Gentlemen  were  welcome  to  go  on  losing  as  long  as 

"  Who,  nursed  in  clubs,  disdains  a  vulgar  trade, 
Exults  to  trust,  and  blushes  to  be  paid," 

retired  from  the  management,  and,  not  unnaturally,  died  poor. 

The  managers  of  Brooks's  have  courteously  permitted  me  to  extract 
from  the  books  of  the  club  anything  that  bears  upon  the  career  and 
habits  of  its  greatest  member. 

1  "  I  won  four  hundred  pounds  last  night,"  wrote  Fitzpatrick,  "  which 
was  immediately  appropriated  to  Mr.  Martindale,  to  whom  I  still  owe 
three  hundred  pounds ;  and  I  am  in  Brooks's  books  for  twice  that  sum." 
Within  the  same  ten  pages  of  Selwyn's  "  Correspondence "  are  letters 
from  two  earls,  one  of  whom  relates  how,  in  a  moment  of"  cursed  folly," 
he  raised  his  account  with  Brooks  from  one  hundred  to  five  hundred 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  77 

the  most  sanguine  of  their  adversaries  was  willing  to  trust 
them;  and  when,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  Charles  Fox  entered 
the  club,  which  he  was  to  render  illustrious,  he  found  himself 
surrounded  with  every  facility  for  ruining  himself  with  the 
least  delay  and  in  the  best  of  company. 

If  the  habits  of  life  which  prevailed  within  the  walls  of 
Brooks's  differed  from  those  of  the  world  outside,  they  did 
not  differ  for  the  worse.  The  men  who  swept  up  the  gold 
and  tilted  out  the  dice  on  the  old  round-table  in  the  draw- 
ing-room on  whose  broad  and  glistening  surface  the  weekly 
journals  now  lie  of  an  evening  in  innocent  array,  played 
more  comfortably  and  more  good-humoredly  than  elsewhere, 
but  they  did  not  play  for  higher  stakes.  Society  in  those 
days  was  one  vast  casino.  On  whatever  pretext,  and  under 
whatever  circumstances,  half  a  dozen  people  of  fashion  found 
themselves  together — whether  for  music  or  dancing  or  pol- 
itics, or  for  drinking  the  waters1  or  each  other's  wine — the 
box  was  sure  to  be  rattling,  and  the  cards  were  being  cut  and 
shuffled.     The  passion  for  gambling  was  not  weakened  or  di- 

pounds ;  while  the  other  writes,  "  Having  lost  a  very  monstrous  sum  of 
money  last  night,  if  it  is  not  very  inconvenient  to  you,  I  should  be  glad 
of  the  money  you  owe  me.  If  it  is,  I  must  pay  what  I  can,  and  desire 
Brooks  to  trust  me  for  the  remainder."  The  scion  of  another  noble  house 
is  immortalized  in  the  club  books  by  an  entry  which  appears  against  his 
name,  scrawled  in  the  headlong  indignation  of  some  loser  who  had  been 
balked  of  his  revenge.  "Having  won  only  £12,000  during  the  last  two 
months,  retired  in  disgust,  March  21,  1772;  and  that  he  may  never  re- 
turn is  the  ardent  wish  of  members." 

1  Bath  had  been  a  headquarters  of  gambling  all  through  the  reign  of 
George  the  Second.  "Were  it  not,"  wrote  Lord  Chesterfield,  "for  the 
comfort  of  returning  health,  I  believe  I  should  hang  myself;  I  am  so 
weary  of  sauntering  about  without  knowing  what  to  do,  or  of  playing  at 
low  play,  which  I  hate,  for  the  sake  of  avoiding  high,  which  I  love." 
Lord  Chesterfield's  receipt  for  prudence  did  not  suit  the  more  fervid 
temperament  of  Pulteney,  one  of  whose  jeremiads  over  his  own  losses 
concludes  with  a  wish  which  would  have  gone  home  to  Charles  Fox. 
"  On  Friday  next  we  leave  this  place — an  unlucky  one  for  me,  for  I  have 
lost  between  five  and  six  hundred  pounds  at  it.  Would  it  was  to  be  paid, 
like  the  Jew's  of  Venice,  with  flesh  instead  of  money  !  I  think  I  could 
spare  some  pounds  of  that  without  any  detriment." 


78  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  III. 

verted  by  the  rival  attractions  of  female  society;  for  the 
surest  road  into  the  graces  of  a  fine  lady  was  to  be  known 
as  one  who  betted  freely  and  lost  handsomely ;  and  too  often 
it  was  no  bar  to  a  young  fellow's  advancement  if  he  contrived 
to  be  short-sighted  at  a  critical  moment  in  the  game,  and  was 
above  having  a  long  memory  with  regard  to  his  unpaid  win- 
nings. It  was  next  to  impossible  for  a  lad  still  in  his  teens 
to  keep  himself  from  the  clutch  of  these  elegant  harpies, 
when  men  who  were  renowned  as  talkers  in  half  the  capitals 
of  Europe  complained  that  the  eagerness  of  the  women  to 
levy  blackmail  on  their  friends  and  acquaintances  was  the  de- 
struction of  all  pleasant  and  rational  intercourse  in  London 
drawing-rooms.  "The  ladies,"  said  Horace  Walpole,  "game 
too  deep  for  me.  The  last  time  I  was  in  town  Lady  Hert- 
ford wanted  one,  and  I  lost  fifty-six  guineas  before  I  could 
say  an  Ave-Maria.  I  do  not  know  a  teaspoonful  of  news. 
I  could  tell  you  what  was  trumps,  but  that  was  all  I  heard." 
On  a  summer  night  at  Bedford  House,  with  windows  open 
on  the  garden,  and  French  horns  and  clarionets  on  the  gravel 
walks,  the  guests  had  no  ears  for  anything  beyond  the  cant 
phrases  of  the  card -table.  There  was  limited  loo  for  the 
Princess  Amelia,  and  unlimited  loo  for  the  Duchess  of  Graf- 
ton ;  and  it  was  noticed  that  when  a  pipe  and  tabor  were  in- 
troduced, and  the  furniture  was  shifted  for  a  minuet,  her 
royal  highness  took  advantage  of  the  confusion  to  desert 
her  own  for  the  duchess's  party.  During  a  long  and  fierce 
debate  on  Wilkes,  and  a  close  division  —  so  close  that  two 
votes  were  purchased  with  two  peerages,  and  that  invalids 
were  brought  down  in  flannels  and  blankets,  till  the  floor  of 
the  House  was  compared  to  the  pavement  of  Bethesda — eight 
or  nine  Whig  ladies  who  could  not  find  room  in  the  gallery, 
after  a  cosy  dinner,  were  contentedly  sitting  round  a  pool  in 
one  of  the  Speaker's  chambers.  "  Mrs.  Lumm,"  wrote  Rigby 
from  Dublin  in  1765,  "loses  two  or  three  hundred  on  a 
night ;  but  Mrs.  Fitzroy  is  very  angry  she  does  not  win  it ;" 
and  in  the  course  of  the  next  year  George  Selwyn  was  in- 
formed that  the  lady  who  had  been  so  unlucky  in  Ireland 
was  suspected  by  the  gossips  at  Bath  of  having  taken  very 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  79 

practical  measures  to  balk  the  spite  of  fortune.  "  Your  old 
friend,"  writes  Grilly  Williams,  "  is  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford's 
party ;  and,  I  believe,  carries  pams  in  her  pocket  to  the  loo- 
table."  But  the  ladies  who  cheated  were  in  the  long  run  less 
dangerous  associates  than  the  ladies  who  could  not  pay.  No 
man  of  honor  would  expect  his  fair  debtor  to  face  an  angry 
husband  with  the  equanimity  with  which  he  himself  encoun- 
tered the  surliness  of  his  banker  or  the  remonstrances  of  his 
steward ;  and  to  the  end  of  his  gambling  days  (an  end  which 
came  much  earlier  than  popular  tradition  imports)  it  was  not 
in  Charles  Fox  to  be  stern  with  a  pretty  defaulter,  crying  as 
she  had  never  cried  except  on  the  day  when  he  resigned  the 
seals,  at  the  prospect  of  having  on  her  return  home  to  con- 
fess that  she  had  lost  her  pin-money  three  times  over  in  the 
course  of  a  single  evening. 

Gambling  in  all  its  forms  was  then  rather  a  profession  than 
a  pastime  to  the  leaders  of  the  London  world.  Trite  and  sor- 
did details  of  the  racing-stables  and  the  bill-discounter's  back 
parlor  perpetually  filled  their  thoughts  and  exercised  their 
pens,  to  the  exclusion  of  worthier  and  more  varied  themes. 
The  delicate  flavors  of  literature  palled  upon  those  depraved 
palates ;  and  even  the  fiercer  delights  of  the  political  arena 
seemed  insipid,  and  its  prizes  paltry,  while  sums  exceeding  the 
yearly  income  of  a  secretary  of  state  or  the  yearly  perquisites 
of  an  auditor  of  the  Exchequer  were  continually  depending 
upon  the  health  of  a  horse  or  the  sequence  of  a  couple  of 
cards.  "  The  rich  people  win  everything,"  writes  the  Earl  of 
March  from  Newmarket.  "Sir  James  Lowther  has  won 
above  seven  thousand."  "  The  hazard  this  evening  was  very 
deep,"  says  the  Earl  of  Carlisle.  "Meynell  won  four  thou- 
sand pounds,  and  Pigot  five  thousand."  "  White's  goes  on  as 
usual "  (so  Rigby  reports  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford  in  1763). 
"  Play  there  is  rather  moderate,  ready  money  being  established 
this  winter  at  quinze.1    Lord  Masham  was  fool  enough  to  lose 

1  What  moderate  play  for  ready  money  meant  between  1760  and  1780 
may  be  judged  from  the  standing  rule  at  Brooks's,  which  enjoined  "  every 
person  playing  at  the  new  quinze  table  to  keep  fifty  guineas  before  him." 


80  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

three  thousand  at  hazard  to  Lord  Bolingbroke.  I  guess  that 
was  not  all  ready  money."  The  greed  of  gain  had  no  pity  for 
the  ignorance  and  weakness  of  youth,  and  spared  neither  rel- 
ative nor  benefactor,  nor  host  nor  guest.  "  My  royal  visitor," 
wrote  Rigby,  "  stayed  here  from  Saturday  till  Tuesday.  We 
had  quinze  every  night  and  all  night,  but  I  could  get  none  of 
his  money."  A  lad  fresh  from  his  public  school,  if  he  was 
known  to  have  parents  who  loved  him  well  enough  to  stand 
between  him  and  dishonor,  walked  into  a  London  club  like  a 
calf  eyed  by  the  butchers.  u  The  gaming,"  says  Horace  Wal- 
pole,  in  1770,  "  is  worthy  the  decline  of  our  empire.  The 
young  men  lose  five,  ten,  fifteen  thousand  pounds  in  an  even- 
ing. Lord  Stavordale,  not  one-and-twenty,  lost  eleven  thou- 
sand last  Tuesday,  but  recovered  it  by  one  great  hand  at  haz- 
ard. He  swore  a  great  oath — c  Now,  if  I  had  been  playing 
deep,  I  might  have  won  millions.'  " 

Morality  was  sapped,  filial  affection  poisoned,  and  the  confi- 
dence which  existed  between  old  and  trusted  companions 
grievously  strained  by  the  shifts  to  which  losers  were  driven 
in  order  to  make  good  their  enormous  liabilities.  No  person 
of  ordinary  prudence  could  venture  upon  a  close  intimacy 
without  considering  whether  his  new  comrade  was  one  who 
would  assert  a  comrade's  claim  to  borrow;  and  the  pleasant- 
est  friendships,  as  will  be  seen  in  these  pages,  were  sometimes 
the  most  perilous.  The  letters  which  passed  between  Selwyn 
and  the  partner  with  whom  he  kept  a  common  purse,  after  a 
field-night  at  White's  or  Almack's,  are  dreary  reading  at  the 
best ;  and  when  both  the  associates  had  been  unlucky  together, 
the  tone  of  the  correspondence  became  nothing  short  of  trag- 
ic.1  But  often,  in  the  selfishness  of  despair,  men  did  far  worse 


1  On  a  Saturday  morning  in  1765,  the  Earl  of  March  writes  to  Selwyn, 
"  When  I  came  home  last  night  I  found  your  letter  on  my  table.  So  you 
have  lost  a  thousand  pounds.  ...  As  to  your  banker,  I  will  call  there 
to-morrow.  Make  yourself  easy  about  that,  for  I  have  three  thousand 
pounds  now  at  Coutts's.  There  will  be  no  bankruptcy  wit]mujLS££_are 
both  ruined  at  the  same  time."  Then  follow  some  communications  relat- 
ing tonofeTof  hand  and  the  endorsing  of  bank-bills,  of  a  nature  very  fa- 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  EOX.  81 

than  sponge  upon  a  fellow-gamester.  The  second  Lord  Lyt- 
telton,  who,  when  the  humor  took  him,  was  not  averse  to  pos- 
ing as  a  censor,  and  who  certainly  was  qualified  for  that  func- 
tion by  the  richest  experience,  tells  us  that  his  contemporaries 
seemed  to  have  made  a  law  among  themselves  for  declaring 
their  fathers  superannuated  at  fifty,  and  then  disposed  of  the 
estates  as  if  already  their  own.  He  professed  to  know  of  a 
peer  whose  sons  had  traded  so  freely  on  their  expectations 
that  they  were  paying  interest  to  the  amount  of  eighteen 
thousand  a  year  between  them.  A  still  blacker  case  was  that 
of  a  nobleman  and  his  brothers  who,  after  squandering  their 
patrimony,  cajoled  their  mother  into  mortgaging  her  jointure 
(which  was  all  that  she  had  to  maintain  her),  and  sent  her  on 
some  lying  pretext  into  the  parlor  of  a  Jew  money-lender  in 
order  to  afford  him  an  opportunity  of  satisfying  himself  that 
the  poor  lady's  life  was  a  good  one.  George  Selwyn  had  rea- 
son on  his  side  when,  on  being  told  that  a  waiter  at  Arthur's 
had  been  arrested  for  felony,  he  exclaimed,  "  What  a  horrid 
idea  he  will  give  of  us  to  the  people  in  Newgate !" 

Some  excuse  for  the  vices  of  idle  and  irresponsible  gentle- 
men was  to  be  found  in  the  example  of  those  elevated  person- 
ages who  embodied  the  majesty  of  justice  and  the  sanctity  of 
religion.  When  Charles  Fox  first  took  rank  among  grown 
men,  the  head  of  the  law  in  England  and  the  head  of  the 
Church  in  Ireland  were  notorious  as  two  among  the  hardest 
livers  in  their  respective  countries;  and  such  a  pre-eminence 
was  then  not  lightly  earned.  "  They  tell  me,  Sir  John,"  said 
George  the  Third  to  one  of  his  favorites,  "  that  you  love  a 
glass  of  wine."     "  Those  who  have  so  informed  your  Majesty," 


miliar  to  the  student  of  eighteenth-century  memoirs ;  and,  finally,  before 
the  week  is  out,  the  earl  writes  again, 

"  My  dear  George,  I  have  lost  my  match  and  am  quite  broke.  I  cannot 
tell  how  much.  I  am  obliged  to  you  for  thinking  of  my  difficulties,  and 
providing  for  them  in  the  midst  of  all  your  own." 

Selwyn,  when  he  was  in  his  senses,  bitterly  cried  out  against  the  pas- 
sion for  cards.  "  It  was  a  consumer,"  he  said,  "  of  four  things — time, 
health,  fortune,  and  thinking."  He  eventually  gave  up  high  play,  but  not 
before  he  had  tried  his  hand  at  fleecing  Wilberforce. 

6 


82  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  III. 

was  the  reply,  M  have  done  me  great  injustice  ;  they  should 
have  said  a  bottle  ;"  and  in  the  days  of  Lord  Chancellor  North- 
ington  and  Archbishop  Stone  very  small  account  was  taken 
of  any  aspirant  to  convivial  honors  who  reckoned  his  progress 
through  the  evening  by  glasses.  Philip  Francis,  with  a  mo- 
tive for  keeping  guard  upon  his  tongue  as  strong  as  ever  man 
had,  could  not  always  get  through  an  after-dinner  sitting 
without  losing  his  head,  although  he  sipped  thimblefuls  while 
his  companions  were  draining  bumpers.1  Two  of  his  friends, 
without  any  sense  of  having  performed  an  exceptional  feat, 
finished  between  them  a  gallon  and  a  half  of  champagne  and 
burgundy — a  debauch  which,  in  this  unheroic  age,  it  almost 
makes  one  ill  to  read  of.  It  is  impossible  to  repress  a  feeling 
of  undutiful  satisfaction  at  the  thought  that  few  among  our 
ancestors  escaped  the  penalties  of  this  monstrous  self-indul- 
gence, from  which  so  many  of  their  innocent  descendants  are 
still  suffering.  Their  lives  were  short,  and  their  closing  years 
far  from  merry.  "  Lord  Cholmondeley,"  wrote  Walpole,  "  died 
last  Saturday.  He  was  seventy,  and  had  a  constitution  to  have 
carried  him  to  a  hundred,  if  he  had  not  destroyed  it  by  an  in- 
temperance that  would  have  killed  anybody  else  in  half  the 
time.  As  it  was,  he  had  outlived  by  fifteen  years  all  his  set, 
who  have  reeled  into  the  ferry-boat  so  long  before  him."  A 
squire  past  five-and-fifty  who  still  rode  to  hounds  or  walked 
after  partridges  was  the  envy  of  the  country-side  for  his 
health,  unless  he  had  long  been  its  scorn  for  his  sobriety ;  and 
a  cabinet  minister  of  the  same  age  who  could  anticipate  with 
confidence  that,  at  a  critical  juncture,  he  would  be  able  to 
write  a  confidential  despatch  with  his  own  hand  must  have 
observed  a  very  different  regimen  from  most  of  his  contem- 
poraries. The  memorable  denunciation  of  our  alliance  with 
the  North  American  savages,  as  splendid  a  burst  of  eloquence 
as  ever  thrilled  the  House  of  Lords,  wTas  levelled  by  an  ex- 
secretary  of  state  who  never  was  himself  except  after  a  sharp 
attack  of  the  gout  against  a  secretary  of  state  who,  at  thirty- 

1  Horne  Tooke  relates  that,  in  his  younger  days,  it  was  a  usual  thing 
for  the  company  at  a  coffee-house  to  end  by  burning  their  wigs. 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  .83 

two,  had  been  almost  too  gouty  to  accept  the  seals.  Wine 
did  more  than  work  or  worry  to  expedite  that  flow  of  promo- 
tion to  which  modern  vice-presidents  and  junior  lords  look  back 
With  wistful  regret.  A  statesman  of  the  Georgian  era  wras 
sailing  on  a  sea  of  claret  from  one  comfortable  official  haven 
to  another  at  a  period  of  life  when  a  political  apprentice  in 
the  reign  of  Victoria  is  not  yet  out  of  his  indentures.  'No 
one  can  study  the  public  or  personal  history  of  the  eighteenth 
century  without  being  impressed  by  the  truly  immense  space 
which  drinking  occupied  in  the  mental  horizon  of  the  young, 
and  the  consequences  of  drinking  in  that  of  the  old.  As  we 
turn  over  volume  after  volume- we  find  the  same  dismal  story 
of  gout,  first  dreaded  as  an  avenger,  and  then,  in  a  later  and 
sadder  stage,  actually  courted  and  welcomed  as  a  friend.  It 
is  pitiful  to  witness  the  loftiest  minds  and  the  brightest  wits 
reduced  to  the  most  barren  and  lugubrious  of  topics ;  talking 
of  old  age  at  seven  and  forty ;  urging  a  fellow-sufferer  to 
stuff  himself  with  Morello  cherries,  in  order  to  develop  a  crisis 
in  the  malady ;  or  rejoicing  with  him  over  the  cheering  pros- 
pect that  the  gout  at  length  showed  symptoms  of  being  about 
to  do  its  duty.  It  spoke  well  for  George  the  Third's  common- 
sense  that  he  never  would  join  in  the  congratulations  which 
his  ministers  eagerly  and  unanimously  bestowed  upon  any  of 
their  number  who  was  condemned  to  list  slippers  and  a  Bath 
chair.  "People  tell  me,"  said  his  Majesty,  "that  the  gout 
is  very  wholesome  ;  but  I,  for  one,  can  never  believe  it." 

As  far  as  he  wTas  himself  concerned,  the  king  had  no  occa- 
sion to  adopt  any  such  desperate  medical  theory.  -  He  applied 
to  the  management  of  his  own  health  a  force  of  will  and  an 
independence  of  judgment  which  greater  men  than  he  too  sel- 
dom devote  to  that  homely  but  most  difficult  task.  His  im- 
agination had  been  profoundly  impressed  by  the  sight  of  his 
uncle,  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  dying  at  forty-four  of  a  com- 
plication of  diseases  aggravated  or  caused  by  an  excessive  cor- 
pulence, which  the  vigorous  habits  of  a  soldier  who  entertain- 
ed a  soldier's  dislike  to  rules  of  diet  had  altogether  failed  to 
keep  in  check.  From  that  time  forward  George  the  Third 
observed  a  rigid  temperance,  which  might  not  have  been  mer- 


84_  THE   EARLY    HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  III. 

itorions  in  a  religious  recluse,  but  was  admirable  when  prac- 
tised amidst  the  temptations  of  a  court  by  one  who  husband- 
ed his  bodily  powers  for  the  sake  of  his  duties.  He  never 
allowed  himself  to  be  complimented  on  his  abstinence.  "  'Tis 
no  virtue,"  he  said.  "  I  only  prefer  eating  plain  and  little  to 
growing  sickly  and  infirm."  He  would  ride  in  all  weathers 
from  Kew  or  Windsor  to  St.  James's  Palace,  and  dress  for  a 
levee,  at  which  he  gave  every  individual  present  some  token 
of  his  favor  or  displeasure.1  Then  he  would  assist  at  a  privy 
council  or  do  business  with  his  ministers  till  six  in  the  even- 
ing, take  a  cup  of  tea  and  a  few  slices  of  bread-and-butter 
without  sitting  down  at  table,  and  drive  back  into  Berkshire 
by  lamplight.  In  his  recreations  he  was  more  hardy  and  en- 
ergetic even  than  in  his  labors.  On  hunting-days  he  remained 
in  the  saddle  from  eight  in  the  morning  till  the  approach  of 
night  sent  him  home  to  a  jug  of  hot  barley-water,  which  he 
in  vain  endeavored  to  induce  his  attendants  to  share  with  him. 

1  His  Majesty  made  his  state-receptions  an  opportunity  for  keeping  his 
subjects  (or,  at  any  rate,  those  among  them  who  had  not  forfeited  his 
friendly  interest  by  voting  for  Wilkes)  up  to  his  own  mark  in  the  matter 
of  bodily  exercise.     Mason  was  rather  hard  upon  his  innocent  curiosity  : 

"Let  all  the  frippery  things 
Bcplaced,  bepensioned,  and  bestarred  by  kings, 
Let  these  prefer  a  levee's  harmless  talk ; 
Be  asked  how  often,  and  how  far,  they  walk." 

Warburton  has  left  a  most  characteristic  notice  of  a  morning  at  St. 
James's  in  February,  1767.  "A  buffoon  lord  in  waiting  was  very  busy 
marshalling  the  circle,  and  he  said  to  me,  without  ceremony,  '  Move  for- 
ward. You  clog  up  the  doorway.'  I  replied  with  as  little,  '  Did  nobody 
clog  up  the  king's  doorstead  more  than  I,  there  would  be  room  for  all 
honest  men.'  This  brought  the  man  to  himself.  When  the  king  came 
up  to  me,  he  asked  why  I  did  not  come  to  town  before.  I  said,  I  under- 
stood there  was  no  business  going  forward  in  the  House  in  which  I  could 
be  of  service  to  his  Majesty.  He  replied,  he  supposed  the  severe  storm 
of  snow  would  have  brought  me  up.  I  replied,  'I  was  under  cover  of 
a  very  warm  house.'    You  see,  by  all  this,  how  unfit  I  am  for  courts." 

"  I  see  nothing,"  writes  Macaulay  on  the  margin  of  his  Warburton, 
"but  very  commonplace  questions  and  answers;  questions  worthy  of  a 
king,  and  answers  worthy  of  a  bishop." 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  EOX.  85 

His  gentlemen  in  waiting  tasted  nothing  of  the  luxury  which 
the  humble  world  presumes  to  be  the  reward  of  courtiers,  and 
not  very  much  of  the  comfort  on  which  an  Englishman  of 
rank  reckons  as  his  birthright.  Doors  and  windows  so  habit- 
ually open  that  a  maid  of  honor  encountered  five  distinct  and 
thorough  draughts  on  the  way  from  her  own  room  to  the 
queen's  boudoir;  expeditions  on  foot  across  country  for  ten 
miles  on  end,  without  shirking  a  ploughed  field  or  skirting  a 
patch  of  turnips  ;  early  prayers  in  winter,  with  a  congregation 
dwindling  daily  as  the  mornings  grew  colder  and  darker,  un- 
til by  Christmas  the  king  and  his  equerry  were  left  to  shiver 
through  the  responses  together.  Nothing  would  have  retain- 
ed men  of  fortune  and  men  of  pleasure  in  such  a  Spartan 
service,  except  the  strong  and  disinterested  affection  with 
which  George  the  Third  inspired  all  who  had  to  do  with  him 
in  his  character  of  master  of  a  household. 

The  habit  and  morals  of  that  household  were  those  which 
prevailed  rather  in  the  middle  than  the  upper  classes  of  his 
Majesty's  subjects.  The  first  two  hundred  lines  of  the  "  Win- 
ter's Evening" — a  passage  as  much  beyond  Cowper's  ordinary 
range  as  it  surpasses  in  wealth  and  strength  of  thought,  and  in 
sustained  beauty  and  finish  of  execution,  all  the  pictures  of 
lettered  leisure  and  domestic  peace  that  ever  tantalized  and 
tempted  a  politician  and  a  Londoner— show  us  what  was  then 
the  aspect  of  a  modest  English  home,  refined  by  culture,  and 
ennobled  by  a  religious  faith  of  which  hardly  a  vestige  can 
be  traced  in  the  records  of  fashionable  and  ministerial  circles. 
Cowper  has  elsewhere  left  a  reference  to  the  astonishment 
with  which  the  official  world  witnessed  the  appearance  in  its 
midst  of  such  a  phenomenon  as 

"  one  who  wears  a  coronet  and  prays  " 

in  the  person  of  Lord  Dartmouth.  Yoltaire,  writing  in  1766, 
pronounced  that  there  was  no  more  religion  in  Great  Britain 
than  the  minimum  which  was  required  for  party  purposes. 
Commenting  on  this  passage  in  the  first  blank  space  which  he 
could  find,  as  was  ever  his  custom  when  he  read,  Macaulay  re- 
marks, "Yoltaire  had  lived  with  men   of  wit  and  fashion 


86  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  III. 

during  his  visit  to  England,  and  knew  nothing  of  the  feeling 
of  the  grave  part  of  mankind,  or  of  the  middle  classes.  He 
says  in  one  of  his  ten  thousand  tracts  that  no  shopkeeper  in 
London  believes  there  is  a  hell."  Shopkeepers  who  had  lis- 
tened to  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys  for  thirty  years  were 
not  very  likely  to  be  sceptics  on  the  question  of  future  pun- 
ishment; but  men  of  fashion  did  not  concern  themselves 
about  the  beliefs  of  smaller  people.  There  is  just  as  much 
and  as  little  trace  of  Christianity  in  Horace  Walpole  as  in 
Pliny  the  younger.  Indeed,  in  this  very  year  of  1766,  Wal- 
pole describes  his  first  sight  of  the  man  who  was  guiding  a 
revolution  in  creed  and  practice  which  has  deeply  and  per- 
manently modified  the  religion  of  the  English-speaking  race, 
in  a  letter  which,  if  translated  into  good  Latin,  might  pass 
muster  as  an  extract  from  the  familiar  correspondence  of 
Gallio.1 

Few,  indeed,  among  the  rich  and  great  had  a  relish  for  the 
quiet  round  of  rural  pursuits  and  family  anniversaries  outside 
which  their  monarch  never  found,  or  looked  for,  happiness. 
The  finest  of  country-houses  was  too  often  regarded  by  its 
owner  as  a  place  of  exile,  unless  he  could  fill  it  with  a  com- 
pany large  enough  to  keep  the  loo-table  crowded  until  within 
an  hour  of  daybreak,  and  to  manufacture  sufficient  scandal 

1  "My  health  advances  faster  than  my  amusement.  However,  I  have 
been  at  one  opera,  Mr.  Wesley's.  They  have  boys  and  girls  with  charm- 
ing voices,  that  sing  hymns  to  Scotch  ballad-tunes,  but  so  long  that  one 
would  think  they  were  already  in  eternity,  and  knew  how  much  time 
they  had  before  them.  The  chapel  is  very  neat,  with  true  Gothic  win- 
dows; yet  I  am  not  converted,  but  I  was  glad  to  see  that  luxury  was 
creeping  in  upon  them  before  persecution.  Wesley  is  a  lean  elderly  man, 
fresh-colored,  his  hair  smoothly  combed,  but  with  a  soupcon  of  curl  at 
the  ends.  Wondrous  clean,  but  as  evidently  an  actor  as  Garrick.  He 
spoke  his  sermon,  but  so  fast,  and  with  so  little  accent,  that  I  am  sure  he 
has  often  uttered  it.  There  were  parts  and  eloquence  in  it ;  but  towards 
the  end  he  exalted  his  voice,  and  acted  very  ugly  enthusiasm.  Except  a 
few  from  curiosity,  and  some  honorable  women,  the  congregation  was  very 
mean."  Those  who  have  seen  the  "  true  Gothic  "  of  Strawberry  Hill  will 
not  suspect  the  poor  Methodists  of  any  excess  in  ecclesiastical  decora- 
tion. 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  87 

for  its  own  consumption.  "  Ten  miles  from  town,"  said  Wal- 
pole,  "  is  a  thousand  miles  from  truth ;"  that  is  to  say,  from 
the  truth  as  to  which  of  the  king's  brothers  would  first  be 
secretly  married,  and  what  pretty  lady  was  killing  herself  the 
fastest  with  white-lead.  Lord  Coventry  was  not  alone  among 
Lord  Holland's  friends  in  valuing  his  country-seat  chiefly  as  a 
convenient  pretext  for  a  visit  to  Paris,  where  he  took  care  to 
be  observed  at  the  upholsterer's  "  buying  glasses  and  tapestry 
for  a  place  in  which  he  never  sees  himself  but  he  wishes  him- 
self, and  all  belonging  to  it,  at  the  devil."  Even  Lord  Car- 
lisle, who  could  paint  the  delights  of  literary  retirement  in 
sentences  worthy  of  Montaigne,  did  not  seek  that  retirement 
willingly.  To  live  with  a  wife  whom  he  worshipped  in  the 
most  delicious  palace  in  the  three  kingdoms  wTas  in  his  eyes  a 
banishment  to  which  it  wTas  necessary  to  submit  as  the  penalty 
for  past,  and  the  preparation  for  future,  extravagance.  Castle 
Howard  was  endurable  because  there  he  could  eat  his  own 
venison,  burn  his  own  firewood,  and  save  in  the  course  of  two 
years  enough  to  repair  the  disasters  of  a  single  ruinous  even- 
ing. And  yet  he  could  enter  heartily  into  all  the  enjoyments 
of  a  purer  and  less  fevered  life,  and  was  shrewd  enough  to  rate 
the  pleasures  of  London  at  their  proper  worth.  "  I  rise  at  six  " 
(so  he  writes  to  Selwyn) ;  "  am  on  horseback  till  breakfast ; 
play  at  cricket  till  dinner ;  and  dance  in  the  evening  till  I  can 
scarce  crawl  to  bed  at  eleven.  You  get  up  at  nine;  sit  till 
twelve  in  your  night-gown  ;  creep  down  to  White's  and  spend 
five  hours  at  table ;  sleep  till  you  can  escape  your  supper  reck- 
oning ;  and  then  make  two  wretches  carry  you  in  a  chair,  with 
three  pints  of  claret  in  you,  three  miles  for  a  shilling."  Such 
was  the  daily  existence  of  the  men  whom  Lord  Holland  chose 
as  mentors  to  his  young  Telemachus. 

There  has  been  little  satisfaction  in  dwelling  upon  those 
social  allurements  to  which  Charles  Fox  so  readily  succumbed ; 
but  it  is  with  very  different  feelings  that  we  turn  to  the  con- 
templation of  a  scene  whose  enticements  to  evil  he  of  all  men 
had  the  greatest  merit  in  resisting,  and  whose  corruptions, 
taking  his  career  as  a  whole,  he  of  all  men  did  the  most  to  re- 
form.   The  political  world,  then  as  always,  was  no  better  than 


88  THE  EARLY    HISTORY   OF  [Chaf.  III. 

the  individuals  who  composed  it.  Private  vices  were  reflected 
in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs ;  and  the  English  people  suf- 
fered, and  suffers  still,  because  at  a  great  crisis  in  our  history 
a  large  proportion  among  onr  rulers  and  councillors  had  been 
too  dissolute  and  prodigal  to  be  able  to  afford  a  conscience. 
The  enormous  expenditure  which  the  habits  and  ideas  of  good 
society  inexorably  demanded  had  to  be  met  by  one  expedient 
or  another ;  and  an  expedient  was  not  far  to  seek  when  the 
same  men  who,  as  a  class,  were  the  most  generally  addicted  to 
personal  extravagance,  possessed  a  practical  monopoly  of  po- 
litical power.  Everybody  who  had  influence  in  Parliament  or 
at  court  used  it  for  the  express  and  avowed  purpose  of  making 
or  repairing  his  fortune.  "  There  is  no  living  in  this  country 
under  twenty  thousand  a  year — not  that  that  suffices ;  but  it 
entitles  one  to  ask  a  pension  for  two  or  three  lives."  So  said 
Horace  Walpole,  and  he  had  a  right  to  know ;  for  he  lived  in 
the  country,  and  on  the  country,  during  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury, doing  for  the  country  less  than  half  a  day's  work  in  half 
a  year.  His  father,  acting  like  other  fathers  who  enjoyed  the 
like  opportunities,  charged  the  exchequer  for  the  maintenance 
of  his  sons,  according  to  their  several  claims  on  him,  as  calmly 
and  systematically  as  a  country  gentleman  settles  an  estate 
upon  one  child  and  a  rent-charge  on  another;1  and  he  wras 
regarded,  in  return,  by  his  family  with  precisely  the  same 
gratitude  as  he  would  have  excited  had  he  been  generous 
with  his  own  savings,  instead  of  with  the  national  money. 
After  describing  how  his  eldest  brother  had  been  appointed 
auditor  of  the  exchequer,  and  his  second  brother  clerk  of  the 
pells ;  how,  for  his  own  share,  his  father  had  made  him  clerk 
of  the  estreats  while  he  was  still  at  Eton,  and  usher  of  the 
exchequer  before  he  had  left  Cambridge ;  and  how  the  profits 
of  the  collectorship  of  customs  had  been  carefully  divided  by 
bequest  between  his  second  brother  and  himself — Horace 
Walpole  goes  on  to  speak  of  his  emoluments  as  a  noble  por- 

1  When  an  alteration  in  the  routine  of  the  exchequer  business  reduced 
Horace's  profits  by  ten  per  cent.,  Sir  Robert,  "  with  his  wonted  equity 
and  tenderness,"  at  once  took  measures  for  readjusting  what  he  looked 
upon  as  the  private  fortunes  of  his  sons  by  adding  a  codicil  to  his  will. 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  89 

tion  for  a  third  son,  and  calls  upon  his  readers,  sublimely  ig- 
noring the  consideration  that  they  were  likewise  taxpayers,  to 
join  him  in  admiring  the  tenderness  of  a  father  who  had  lav- 
ished riches  on  him  greatly  beyond  his  deserts.  "  Endowed," 
he  says,  "  so  bountifully  by  a  fond  parent,  it  would  be  ridicu- 
lous to  sav  that  I  have  been  content."  He  might  well  be  con- 
tent ;  for,  from  first  to  last,  his  gains  must  have  amounted  to 
at  least  a  quarter  of  a  million,  in  an  age  when  a  quarter  of  a 
million  was  worth  a  great  deal  more  than  now. 

We,  who  look  upon  politics  as  a  barren  career,  by  which  few 
people  hope  to  make  money  and  none  to  save  it,  and  who 
would  expect  a  poet  to  found  a  family  as  soon  as  a  prime-min- 
ister, can  with  difficulty  form  a  just  conception  of  a  period 
when  people  entered  Parliament,  not  because  they  were  rich, 
but  because  they  wanted  to  be  rich,  and  when  it  was  more 
profitable  to  be  the  member  of  a  cabinet  than  the  partner  in 
a  brewery.  And  yet  those  who  have  not  clearly  before  their 
minds  the  nature  of  that  vital  change  which  has  come  over 
the  circumstances  of  English  public  life  during  the  last  hun- 
dred years  will  never  understand  the  events  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  or  do  justice  to  its  men — men  who  were  spurred  for- 
ward by  far  sharper  incentives,  and  solicited  by  far  fiercer 
temptations,  than  ours,  and  who,  when  they  held  a  straight 
course,  were  entitled  to  very  different  credit  from  any  that  we 
can  possibly  deserve.  A  minister  of  state  in  the  year  1880, 
while  he  draws  from  the  treasury  a  mere  pittance  compared 
with  what,  in  two  cases  out  of  three,  he  would  have  made  in 
the  open  market  if  he  had  applied  his  talents  to  commerce  or 
to  the  bar,  has  less  facilities  for  advancing  his  relatives  and 
connections  than  if  he  were  the  chief  of  a  law  court,  or  a 
director  of  the  Bank  of  England.  A  merchant  who  belongs 
to  the  noblesse  of  the  city  can  put  his  children  in  the  way  of 
making  their  fortunes  for  themselves.  A  lord  chancellor,  or 
a  lord  chief-justice,  has  still  in  his  gift  posts  in  which  the  num- 
ber of  hours  of  work  compares  so  favorably  with  the  number 
of  pounds  of  salary  that  Bigby  himself  would  have  conde- 
scended to  hold  one.  But  a  prime-minister  may  count  on  the 
fingers  of  one  hand  the  well-paid  and  lightly-worked  appoint- 


00  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IIL 

ments  which  fall  vacant  during  his  tenure  of  power ;  and  he 
wTill  be  fortunate  if  lie  can  count  on  the  fingers  of  both  hands 
the  meritorious  departmental  officers,  and  the  influential  par- 
liamentary supporters,  who  regard  each  of  these  appointments 
as  their  due.  To  select  for  such  employment  a  candidate  out- 
side the  civil  service,  and  under  thirty  years  of  age,  would  be 
to  raise  a  mutiny  in  every  board-room  between  Thames  Street 
and  Palace  Yard.  The  utmost  that  a  modern  statesman  can 
do  for  a  son  or  a  nephew  is  to  nominate  him  to  the  privilege 
of  competing  with  a  dozen  other  lads  in  history  and  modern 
languages,  with  the  prospect  that,  in  case  of  success,  he  will 
obtain  an  income  which  would  not  have  paid  the  wine-bill  of 
a  placeman  in  the  days  of  Weymouth  and  Sandwich.  Even 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle  would  have  scorned  to  put  in  his  claim 
for  the  disposal  of  such  paltry  patronage  as  that  to  which  his 
degenerate  successors  have  limited  themselves. 

But  it  was  worth  a  man's  while  to  be  secretary  of  state  un- 
der the  Georges.  At  a  time  when  trade  wTas  on  so  small  a 
scale  that  a  Lancashire  manufacturer  considered  himself  fairly 
well  off  on  the  income  which  his  great-grandson  now  gives  to 
his  cashier,  a  cabinet  minister,  over  and  above  the  ample  sal- 
ary of  his  office,  might  reckon  confidently  upon  securing  for 
himself,  and  for  all  who  belonged  to  him  and  who  came  after 
him,  a  permanent  maintenance,  not  dependent  upon  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  party,  which  would  be  regarded  as  handsome,  and 
even  splendid,  in  these  days  of  visible  and  all-pervading  opu- 
lence. One  nobleman  had  eight  thousand  a  year  in  sinecures, 
and  the  colonelcies  of  three  regiments.  Another,  as  auditor 
of  the  exchequer,  inside  which  he  never  looked,  had  eight 
thousand  pounds  in  years  of  peace,  and  twenty  thousand  in 
years  of  war.  A  third,  with  nothing  to  recommend  him  ex- 
cept his  outward  graces,  bowed  and  whispered  himself  into 
four  great  employments,  from  which  thirteen  or  fourteen  hun- 
dred British  guineas  flowed  month  by  month  into  the  lap  of 
his  Parisian  mistress.  And  the  lucrative  places  which  a  states- 
man held  in  his  own  name  formed  but  a  part,  and  often  the 
least  part,  of  the  advantages  that  he  derived  from  his  position. 
All  the  claims  on  his  purse  were  settled,  and  all  services  ren- 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  91 

dered  to  him,  honorable  and  dishonorable  alike,  were  recom- 
pensed by  fresh,  and  ever  fresh,  inroads  upon  the  exchequer. 
The  patron  of  his  borough,  if  he  was  a  commoner ;  his  mouth- 
piece in  the  Lower  House,  if  he  was  a  peer;  the  gentleman 
of  the  bedchamber,  who  stood  his  friend  at  court ;  the  broker 
who,  when  the  last  loan  was  brought  out,  had  got  to  know 
more  than  was  pleasant  about  the  allotment  of  the  scrip ;  his 
racing  friend,  who  had  nothing  left  to  lose ;  his  French  cook, 
his  children's  tutor,  his  led  captain,  his  hired  poet,  and  his  in- 
spired pamphleteer,  were  all  paid  with  nominations,  or  pacified 
with  reversions.1    If  a  comfortable  berth  was  already  occupied, 


1  When  Lord  Holland  went  to  Italy  in  1763,  he  thought  it  necessary  to 
provide  for  his  son's  tutor ;  so  he  bequeathed  him  as  a  legacy  to  Lord 
Bute,  who  transferred  him  to  George  Grenville.  Through  this  recom- 
mendation he  afterwards  obtained  a  pension  out  of  the  privy  purse  of 
three  hundred  a  year.     Cowper  did  not  exaggerate  when  he  wrote — 

"  The  levee  swarms,  as  if  in  golden  pomp 
Were  charactered  on  every  statesman's  door, 
*■  Battered  and  bankrupt  fortunes  mended  here.'  " 

The  Duke  of  Grafton  procured  five  hundred  a  year  for  an  old  Newmarket 
acquaintance  who  had  squandered  his  fortune  on  the  turf.  A  single 
happy  Scotchman,  in  his  character  of  minister's  friend,  enjoyed  a  cap- 
tain's commission  for  his  son  of  ten  years  old,  an  income  of  three  thou- 
sand in  hand,  and  the  reversion  of  a  place  valued  at  seventeen  hundred 
pounds  a  year :  "  I  do  not,"  said  Wilkes,  "  mean  Scottish,  but  English 
pounds."  Bute's  hackwriter  in  prose  had  a  pension  from  the  public  of 
six  hundred  a  year.  His  poet,  one  Dalrymple,  who  libelled  Pitt  in  a  per- 
formance entitled  "  Rodondo,  or  the  State  Jugglers,"  which  is  almost  a 
literary  curiosity  on  account  of  the  badness  of  the  rhymes,  was  gratified 
with  the  attorney-generalship  of  Grenada.  The  Earl  of  Sandwich,  not 
liking  to  trench  upon  his  lay  patronage,  found  it  more  convenient  to 
have  his  lampoons  written  by  gentlemen  in  holy  orders,  whom  he  could 
reward  with  crown  livings.  Paul  Whitehead,  by  using  such  powers  of 
satire  as  he  possessed  against  the  enemies  of  men  who  had  something  to 
give,  ended  by  getting  eight  hundred  a  year  as  deputy-treasurer  to  the 
chamber ;  whereas  the  trade  value  of  his  collected  works  might  have 
been  something  under  eight  hundred  shillings.  Dr.  Johnson,  speaking 
of  his  own  "  London,"  the  copyright  of  which  noble  poem  he  sold  for 
ten  guineas,  said  that  he  might,  perhaps,  have  been  content  with  less; 


\y 


92  THE   EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

at  any  rate  the  succession  to  it  might  still  be  worth  the  having. 
A  paymaster  of  the  works,  or  an  auditor  of  the  plantations, 
with  plenty  of  money  to  bny  good  liquor,  and  plenty  of  time 
to  drink  it,  did  not  live  forever ;  and  a  next  appointment  to 
the  civil  service  in  the  last  century  might  be  discounted  as 
freely  as  a  next  presentation  to  a  living  in  our  own. 

When  every  desirable  office  was  filled  two  deep,  there  still 
remained  the  resource  of  a  pension — a  resource  elastic  and 
almost  unlimited  under  a  monarch  who  was  never  afraid  of 
appearing  before  his  Parliament  in  the  character  of  an  insol- 
vent debtor.  Those  recipients  of  what — with  an  irony  which 
the  taxpayer  was  beginning  to  understand — was  styled  the 
royal  bount3T,  who  were  too  disreputable  to  figure  on  the  Eng- 
lish civil  list,  were  quietly  and  snugly  quartered  on  the  Irish 
establishment.  Decent  men  were  not  always  willing  to  see 
themselves  enrolled  in  a  column  of  names  which,  appropriate- 
ly headed  by  the  Queen  of  Denmark,  recalled  the  successive 
scandals  of  three  reigns ;  but  squeamishness  was  not  the  fail- 
ing of  the  age,  and  the  Irish  pensions  were  trebled  in  the 
first  thirty  years  of  George  the  Third.  The  English  pension 
list  grew  steadily  and  silently,  with  occasional  periods  of  sud- 
den and  very  perceptible  expansion.  It  was  reckoned  that 
every  change  of  government  (and  changes  of  government 
were  far  more  frequent  then  than  now)  cost  the  country 
from  nine  to  fifteen  thousand  a  year.  A  minister  who  was 
true  to  his  order  never  allowed  himself  to  be  shelved,  or 
shifted,  or  degraded,  or  even  promoted,  without  getting 
something  for  himself,  his  wife,  or  his  son-in-law.  Whenever 
the  political  cards  wTere  shuffled  the  people  paid  the  stakes ; 
and  a  dozen  pensions  had  generally  been  distributed,  and 
half  a  dozen  increased,  before  the  seals,  the  key,  and  the  sticks 
had  got  into  the  hands  where  they  were  to  remain  for  the 
next  twelvemonth.  When  Lord  Northington  ceased  to  be 
chancellor  in  order  to  become  president  of  the  council,  he 
would  not  leave  the  woolsack  till  he  had  secured  an  immedi- 


"  but  Paul  Whitehead  had  a  little  before  got  ten  guineas  for  a  poem,  and 
I  would  not  take  less  than  Paul  Whitehead." 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  93 

ate  pension  of  two  thousand  a  year,  a  prospective  pension  of 
four  thousand  a  year,  and  the  reversion  for  two  lives  of  the 
clerkship  of  the  hanaper ;  and  this,  although  he  had  already 
provided  for  his  daughters  by  vesting  a  rich  sinecure  with  a 
trustee  for  their  benetit.  There  were  times  when  a  disagree- 
able  man  who  knew  his  own  powers  of  annoyance,  or  even  a 
weak  man  who  had  fathomed  his  own  worthlessness,  could 
make  almost  any  terms  he  chose  with  those  wTho  desired  to 
get  rid  of  him  ;  and  there  was  nothing  wdiatever  which  a 
strong  man,  by  watching  his  occasion,  might  not  obtain  as  the 
price  of  his  services.  Murray,  in  1756,  was  offered  a  pension 
of  six  thousand  a  year,  together  with  the  first  vacant  teller- 
ship,  which  was  worth  at  least  as  much  again,  for  his  nephew, 
if  he  would  remain  in  the  House  of  Commons  with  the  at- 
torney-general's income  of  seven  thousand,  in  addition  to  his 
own  enormous  gains  as  leader  of  the  bar.  But,  almost  alone 
among  statesmen,  he  refused  to  make  his  market  out  of  the 
perplexities  of  his  colleagues.  "  Good  God,"  he  said,  "  what 
merit  have  I  that  you  should  load  this  country,  for  which  so 
little  is  done  with  spirit,  with  a  fresh  burden  of  six  thousand 
a  year  I" 

As  were  the  leaders,  so  were  the  followers.  "  If  any  noble 
lord  challenged  me  to  assert  that  there  is  much  corruption  in 
both  Houses,  I  would  laugh  in  his  face,  and  tell  him  that  he 
knows  it  as  well  as  I."  So  said  Lord  Chatham  plainly  and 
openly  in  his  place  among  the  peers ;  and  there  were  few  no- 
ble lords,  and  not  many  honorable  gentlemen,  whose  personal 
experience  was  such  that  they  would  have  had  the  right  or 
the  face  to  contradict  him.  Parliament,  chosen  by  corrupt  / 
constituencies,  was  corruptly  influenced  by  corrupt  ministers, 
of  whom  Junius  told  the  literal  truth  when  he  said  that  they 
addressed  themselves  neither  to  the  passions  nor  to  the  un- 
derstanding, but  simply  to  the  touch.  The  arguments  by 
which  Grenville  and  Grafton  persuaded  their  supporters 
were  bank  bills  for  two  hundred  pounds  and  upwards,  so 
generously  dealt  about  at  a  premier's  levee  that  sometimes 
they  were  slipped  into  a  hand  which  was  ashamed  to  close 
upon  them ;   tickets  for  state  lotteries,  sold  to  members  of 


94  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

Parliament  in  parcels  of  five  hundred,  and  resold  by  them  at 
a  profit  of  two  pounds  a  ticket ;  government  loans  subscribed 
for  by  the  friends  of  government  at  par,  and  then  thrown  on 
the  city  at  a  premium  of  seven,  and  even  eleven,  per  cent. 
Lord  Bute  and  his  adherents  by  one  such  transaction  robbed 
the  country  of  nearly  four  hundred  thousand  pounds,  an  am- 
ple share  of  which  (as  was  roundly  asserted  and  may  with  no 
breach  of  charity  be  believed)  found  its  way  into  Henry  Fox's 
capacious  pocket.1  Then  there  were  favorable  contracts  for 
honorable  members  connected  with  commerce,  or  who  were 
willing  to  be  connected  with  commerce  when  they  had  a 
chance  of  supplying  the  fleet  with  sailcloth  and  salt  pork  at 
exorbitant  rates,  and  of  a  quality  which  was  left  pretty  much 
to  their  own  sense  of  patriotic  obligation.  And  a  gentleman 
who  liked  to  get  his  price  without  sacrificing  his  ease  might 
have  his  choice  of  pensions,  secret  and  acknowledged  ;  and  of 
highly  endowed  posts,  in  every  climate  of  the  globe,  whose 
functions  could  be  performed  while  seated  at  the  whist-table 
of  Brooks's  by  any  one  who  had  proved  his  fitness  for  public 
employment  by  buying  a  borough,  bribing  a  corporation,  or 
swamping  a  county  with  fictitious  votes.  George  Selwyn, 
who  returned  two  members  and  had  something  to  say  in  the 
election  of  a  third,  was  at  one  and  the  same  time  surveyor- 
general  of  crown  lands — which  he  never  surveyed — registrar 
in  chancery  at  Barbadoes — which  he  never  visited — and  sur- 
veyor of  the  meltings  and  clerk  of  the  irons  in  the  mint — 


1  There  survives  a  remarkable  narrative  of  a  dinner  given  by  the  Duke 
of  Grafton  to  the  favored  few  who  were  behind  the  scenes  when  a  new 
loan  was  brought  upon  the  stage.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  cleverness 
and  presence  of  mind  with  which  Charles  Townshend,  then  chancellor  of 
the  exchequer,  purposely  over-acted  his  part  of  a  headlong  and  puzzle- 
headed  man  of  business  in  order  to  confuse  the  accounts  and  retain  for 
himself  the  lion's  share  of  the  booty.  When  such  were  the  guardians  of 
the  public  purse,  there  was  point  in  the  epigram  suggested  by  an  an- 
nouncement that  the  precincts  of  the  Treasury  were  to  be  patrolled  after 
dark. 

"  From  the  night  to  the  morning  'tis  true  all  is  right ; 
But  who  will  secure  it  from  morning  to  night  V 


s 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  95 

where  he  showed  himself  once  a  week  in  order  to  eat  a  din- 
ner which  he  ordered,  but  for  which  the  nation  paid.1 

When  offices,  whose  unfulfilled  duties  were  supposed  to  lie 
in  England,  had  been  heaped  upon  one  individual  in  such 
profusion  as  to  excite,  not  indeed  the  moral  disapprobation, 
but  the  hungry  jealousy,  of  his  brethren,  a  judicious  pluralist, 
who  could  scent  a  job  across  the  seas,  was  still  only  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  acquisitions.  Ireland,  the  natural  prey  of  the 
place-hunter,  had  to  contribute  towards  the  bribing  of  our 
own  senate  before  she  proceeded  to  satiate  the  rapacity  of  her 
own.  Her  richest  salaries  were  transmitted  to  London,  and 
her  most  elevated  functions  were  discharged  by  deputies  at 
Dublin,  while  her  native  politicians  were  fain  to  content  them- 
selves with  the  leavings  which  Westminster  and  Whitehall 
disdained.  An  English  duke  was  Lord  Treasurer  of  Ireland ; 
the  mouth  of  an  English  orator  had  been  effectually  stopped 
with  the  chancellorship  of  her  exchequer;3  Rigby  was  her 
vice-treasurer,  with  three  thousand  five  hundred  a  year,  and 
had  actually  contrived  to  become  her  master  of  the  rolls  as 
well,  at  a  time  when  a  member  of  the  Irish  Parliament  thought 
himself  lucky  if  he  could  make  up  his  bundle  of  plunder  out 
of  such  incongruous  materials  as  commissionerships  of  the 
Linen  Board,  cornetcies  in  the  dragoons,  fragments  of  Church 
preferment,  odds  and  ends  of  pensions,  and  employments  in 
the  revenue  too  humble  for  their  fame  to  have  crossed  the 
Channel.     And,  when  Britain  had  been  drained  dry,  and  there 

1  The  liberties  of  Eugland  were  in  as  much  danger  in  1770  through 
the  pocket  as  they  had  been  in  1640  from  the  sword.  "Every  man  of 
consequence  almost  in  the  kingdom,"  wrote  Bishop  "Watson,  "  has  a  son, 
relation,  friend,  or  dependent  whom  he  wishes  to  provide  for ;  and,  un- 
fortunately for  the  liberty  of  this  country,  the  crown  has  the  means  of 
gratifying  the  expectation  of  them  all." 

2  Hamilton,  whose  single  speech  has  given  him  a  sobriquet  by  which 
he  is  much  better  known  than  by  his  Christian  names  of  William  Gerard, 
was  provided  for  out  of  the  Irish  Treasury  for  life ;  and  a  long  life  it 
was.  Forty  years  after  his  famous  performance  he  still  moved  in  society, 
haughtily  measuring  out  precious  morsels  of  sarcasm  with  the  economy 
which  became  a  man  who  had  earned  a  quarter's  salary  by  every  sen- 
tence that  he  had  uttered  in  public. 


96  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

was  nothing  more  to  be  squeezed  from  Ireland,  ministers,  in 
an  evil  hour  for  themselves,  remembered  that  there  were  two 
millions  of  Englishmen  in  America  who  had  struggled  through 
the  difficulties  and  hardships  which  beset  the  pioneers  of  civ- 
ilization, and  who,  now  that  their  daily  bread  was  assured  to 
them,  could  afford  the  luxury  of  maintaining  an  army  of  sine- 
curists.  The  suggestion  cannot  be  said  to  have  originated 
on  the  other  shore  of  the  Atlantic.  "  It  was  not,"  said  Junius, 
"  Virginia  that  wanted  a  governor,  but  a  court  favorite  that 
wanted  a  salary."  Virginia,  however,  and  her  sister  colonies, 
were  not  supposed  to  know  what  was  best  for  their  own  in- 
terests, or,  at  any  rate,  for  the  interests  of  their  masters ;  and 
plenty  of  gentlemen  were  soon  drinking  their  claret  and  pay- 
ing their  debts  out  of  the  savings  of  the  fishermen  of  New 
Hampshire  and  the  farmers  of  New  Jersey,  and  talking,  with 
that  perversion  of  sentiment  which  is  the  inevitable  outgrowth 
of  privilege,  about  the  "  cruelty"  of  a  secretary  of  state  who 
hinted  that  they  would  do  well  to  show  themselves  occasion- 
ally among  the  people  whose  substance  they  devoured.  And 
yet  in  most  cases  it  was  fortunate  for  America  that  her  place- 
men had  not  enough  public  spirit  to  make  them  ashamed  of 
being  absentees.  Such  was  the  private  character  of  many 
among  her  official  staff  that  their  room  was  cheaply  purchased 
by  the  money  which  they  spent  outside  the  country.  The 
best  things  in  the  colonies  generally  fell  to  bankrupt  mem- 
bers of  Parliament,  who  were  as  poor  in  political  principle  as 
in  worldly  goods;  and  the  smaller  posts  were  regarded  as 
their  special  inheritance  by  the  riffraff  of  the  election  com- 
mittee-room and  the  bad  bargains  of  the  servants'  hall.  "  In 
one  word,"  we  are  told,  and  told  truly,  "  America  has  been 
for  many  years  the  hospital  of  England." 

The  aspect  of  their  mercenary  Parliament  affected  all 
thoughtful  citizens  with  a  feeling  akin  to  despair.  There  was 
no  hope  of  amendment  except  through  repentance ;  and  re- 
pentance implied  at  least  a  rudimentary  sense  of  shame.  But 
a  ministerial  hireling  cared  nothing  whatever  for  the  disap- 
proval of  any  one  outside  the  House  of  Commons  who  did 
not  happen  to  be  a  freeman  in  his  own  borough ;  and  among 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  97 

those  with  whom  he  lived,  and  whose  esteem  he  valued,  pub- 
lic employment  was  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  personalty  of 
which  everybody  had  a  clear  right  to  scrape  together  as  much 
as  he  could,  without  inquiring  whether  the  particular  post  he 
coveted  ought  to  exist  at  all,  or  whether  he  himself  was  the 
proper  man  to  hold  it.  "  If,"  wrote  Sir  William  Draper,  "  Lord 
Granby  is  generous  at  the  public  expense,  as  Junius  invidi- 
ously calls  it,  the  public  is  at  no  more  expense  for  his  lord- 
ship's friends  than  it  would  be  if  any  other  set  of  men  pos- 
sessed those  offices ;"  and  so  self-evident  did  this  proposition 
appear  to  Lord  Granby 's  friends  that  they  did  not  thank  their 
champion  for  going  out  of  his  way  to  defend  a  system  which, 
in  the  eyes  of  those  who  lived  by  it,  needed  defence  as  little 
as  did  the  institution  of  private  property. 

"  If  I  had  a  son,"  said  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
to  the  House  of  Commons,  at  a  moment  when  he  was  angry 
enough  to  be  candid  at  the  expense  of  his  own  past  history, 
and  that  of  half  his  hearers,  "  I  would  say  to  him  *  Get  into 
Parliament.  Make  tiresome  speeches.  Do  not  accept  the 
first  offer;  but  wait  till  you  can  make  great  provision  for 
yourself  and  your  family ;  and  then  call  yourself  an  indepen- 
dent country  gentleman.' "  The  picture  was  not  overdrawn. 
The  first  lesson  taught  to  a  political  apprentice,  both  by  ex- 
ample and  by  precept,  was  to  mock  at  principle,  and  fight  for 
his  own  hand.  Lord  Shelburne  relates  how,  at  the  coronation 
of  George  the  Third,  he  found  himself  next  to  Lord  Mel- 
combe,  against  whom  he  had  an  electioneering  grievance,  and 
whom  he  at  once  proceeded  to  take  to  task.  His  charges 
were  met  by  an  impudent  equivocation,  which,  with  the  inno- 
cence of  one-and-twenty,  he  would  not  allow  to  pass  unno- 
ticed. "  Well !"  laughed  his  elder,  "  did  you  ever  know  any- 
body get  out  of  a  great  scrape  but  by  a  great  lie?"  In  the 
course  of  the  next  year,  the  young  man,  for  want  of  a  more 
promising  confidant,  invited  Henry  Fox  to  sympathize  with 
the  theory  that  "  gentlemen  of  independent  fortune  should  be 
trustees  between  the  king  and  the  people,  and  make  it  their 
vocation  to  be  of  service  to  both,  without  becoming  the  slaves 
of  either;"  but  the  only  response  to  his  aspirations  which 

7 


98  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

Lord  Shelburne  could  get  out  of  the  paymaster  was  the  recom- 
mendation to  come  up  to  London,  and  ask  for  a  place.  "This 
will  lead  directly  to  what  I  suppose  you  aim  at.  You'll  never 
get  it  from  that  trusteeship  that  you  speak  of ;  nor,  to  say 
truth,  should  you  get  it  till  you  have  got  rid  of  such  puerile 
notions." 

It  is  impossible  to  deny  that,  in  these  cynical  phrases,  Henry 
Fox  expressed  the  creed  of  five  out  of  six  of  his  contempora- 
ries. The  prizes  within  the  Parliamentary  arena  were  too 
tempting — the  pressure  from  without,  under  a  system  of  rep- 
resentation nothing  better  than  illusory,  was  too  fitful  and 
feeble — for  statesmen  to  find  their  interest  in  turning  from 
the  chase  after  incomes  and  ribbons  to  the  pursuit  of  un- 
dertakings which  might  promote  the  welfare  of  the  people. 
"Parties,"  said  Lord  Mansfield,  in  1767,  "aim  only  at  places, 
and  seem  regardless  of  measures."  "  The  cure,"  wrote  George 
Grenville,  "  must  come  from  a  serious  conviction  and  right 
measures,  instead  of  annual  struggles  for  places  and  pensions;"^ 
and  the  times  must,  indeed,  have  been  bad  when  George  Gren- 
ville took  to  preaching.  Unfaithful  to  the  nation  when  in 
office,  politicians  no  longer  pretended  to  be  true  to  each  other 
in  opposition.  Amidst  the  turmoil  of  selfish  ambitions  and 
rival  cupidities  which  was  seething  around  him,  a  man  did 
not  venture  to  rely  on  others,  and  soon  ceased  to  merit  that 
others  should  rely  on  him.  Outside  the  ranks  of  the  little 
band  which  surrounded  Lord  Rockingham,  there  were  not  a 
dozen  members  who  could  be  counted  upon  to  work  in  con- 
cert during  a  single  session  ;  and  the  notion  of  a  patriotic  and 
disinterested  statesman  being  able  to  keep  his  followers  to- 
gether throughout  the  weary  years  that  must  pass  between 
the  hour  when  a  great  question  is  first  mooted  and  the  hour 
when  its  advocacy  is  finally  crowned  with  success  would  have 
supplied  Lord  North's  jovial  colleagues  with  material  for  hi- 
larity during  the  longest  carouse  that  ever  was  remembered 
by  the  butler  at  the  Pay-office  or  the  Admiralty. 

While  the  ties  which  united  men,  who  professed  to  be  act 
ing  for  the  public,  were  too  often  but  a  rope  of  sand,  fidelity 
was  anything  but  eternal  between  those  who  were  bound  to- 


CHAr.IIL]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  99 

gether  by  the  golden  fetters  of  office.  Where  mutual  respect 
did  not  exist,  there  could  be  little  mutual  loyalty;  and  a 
statesman  who  one  year  had  been  making  out  pensions  to  the 
courtiers  who  had  obliged  his  colleague,  and  warrants  against 
the  printers  who  had  libelled  him,  next  year  would  be  thun- 
dering against  him  in  Parliament,  and  plotting  against  him 
in  a  hundred  constituencies,  while  the  temples  of  friendship 
which  they  had  dedicated  to  each  other  at  their  respective 
country-seats  were  still  standing  unroofed  as  a  monument  to 
political  inconstancy.  It  is  the  nature,  said  Bacon,  of  extreme 
self-lovers  to  set  a  house  on  fire  if  it  were  but  to  roast  their 
eggs ;  and  men  whose  device  was  "  Every  one  for  himself, 
and  the  Exchequer  for  us  all,"  did  not  hesitate  to  undermine 
a  government  in  order  to  bring  about  an  absurdly  small  ac- 
cession of  dignity  or  emolument  for  themselves.  During  the 
earlier  years  of  George  the  Third,  administrations  fell  so  fre- 
quently that  an  anonymous  statistician,  the  very  peculiar  flavor 
of  whose  humor  betrays  Burke  in  .disguise,  calculated  that  five 
prime-ministers  maintained  themselves  for  an  average  of  just 
fourteen  months  apiece  from  the  day  w7hen  they  kissed  in 
to  the  day  when  they  wrere  kicked  out.  Meanwhile,  the  mi- 
nor constellations  of  the  official  galaxy  were  darting  about 
like  fragments  of  glass  in  a  kaleidoscope.  Five  hundred  and 
thirty  placemen  went  in  and  out,  or  up  and  down,  between 
the  Great  Commoner's  resignation  in  1761,  and  Lord  Chatham's 
resumption  of  power  in  1766.  As  one  glittering  transmuta- 
tion succeeded  another,  with  profit  to  the  scene-shifters,  but 
utterly  barren  of  entertainment  to  the  spectators,  the  pit  and 
the  galleries  sometimes  hissed,  but  for  the  most  part  looked 
on  with  contemptuous  and  silent  indifference.  The  great  mass 
of  Englishmen  had  learned  by  repeated  experience  that  a 
change  of  ministry  brought  them  no  economy  in  their  expen- 
diture, no  removal  of  ancient  abuses,  no  beneficent  additions 
to  their  statute-book — nothing  but  ever-growing  files  of  quar- 
terly receipts  signed  with  the  least  honored  names  in  the  three 
kingdoms.  A  profound  distrust  of  public  men;  a  discontent 
which  afforded  the  matter,  and  suggested  the  title,  of  the 
most  instructive,  if  not  the  most  eloquent,  political  treatise  in 


100  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  III. 

our  language ;  and  that  sullen  disbelief  in  a  peaceful  remedy 
which  is  the  gravest  of  national  maladies,  were  eating  their 
way  fast  and  deep  into  the  hearts  of  the  people.1 

"  Certainly  great  persons  had  need  to  borrow  other  men's 
opinions  to  think  themselves  happy."2  So  said  a  famous  stu- 
dent who,  to  his  cost,  was  likewise  a  minister  of  state ;  and 
the  truth  of  the  saying  will  hardly  be  questioned  by  a  mod- 
ern servant  of  the  crown  who  knows  what  it  is  to  sacrifice 
health  and  sleep,  books,  art,  field-sports,  and  travel ;  who  dur- 
ing four  days  in  the  week  enjoys  no  social  relaxation  beyond 
the  whispered  hope  of  a  count-out  exchanged  with  an  over- 
worked colleague,  and  who  looks  for  no  material  recompense 
over  and  above  a  precarious  income,  half  of  which  is  spent 
upon  perfunctory  festivities  that  consume  the  few  poor  even- 
ings which  the  House  of  Commons  spares,  and  the  other  half 
barely  replaces  the  capital  that  has  been  lavished  on  the  elec- 
tions of  a  lifetime.  But  those  received  commonplaces  about 
the  sweets  of  office,  which  are  little  better  than  dreary  irony 
when  applied  to  the  councillors  of  Queen  Victoria,  meant  a 
great  deal  in  the  ears  of  a  statesman  who  had  the  privilege 
of  serving  her  grandfather.  With  no  annual  bill  of  a  hun- 
dred clauses  to  turn  into  an  act  on  pain  of  being  pilloried  as 
an  idler  by  half  the  newspapers  in  the  country ;  with  a  dozen 
bribed  burgesses  for  constituents,  and  a  couple  of  hundred 

1  Burke,  in  the  first  page  of  the  "  Thoughts  on  the  Cause  of  the  Present 
Discontents,"  sums  up  the  nature  of  the  present  uneasiness  in  one  sweep- 
ing and  majestic  sentence.  "  That  government  is  at  once  dreaded  and 
contemned ;  that  the  laws  are  despoiled  of  all  their  respected  and  salu- 
tary terrors ;  that  their  inaction  is  a  subject  of  ridicule,  and  their  exer- 
tion of  abhorrence ;  that  rank,  and  office,  and  title,  and  all  the  solemn 
plausibilities  of  the  world,  have  lost  their  reverence  and  effect ;  that  our 
own  foreign  politics  are  as  much  deranged  as  our  domestic  economy;  that" 
our  dependencies  are  slackened  in  their  affection,  and  loosed  from  their 
obedience ;  that  we  know  neither  how  to  yield  or  how  to  enforce ;  that 
hardly  anything  above  or  below,  abroad  or  at  home,  is  sound  or  entire ; 
but  that  disconnection  and  confusion,  in  offices,  in  parties,  in  families, 
in  Parliament,  in  the  nation,  prevail  beyond  the  disorders  of  any  former 
time :  these  are  facts  universally  admitted  and  lamented." 

3  Lord  Bacon's  eleventh  essay,  "  Of  Great  Place." 


Chap.  III.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  101 

bribed  supporters  to  cheer  him  as  soon  as  he  rose  from  the 
Treasury  bench ;  his  lot  included  the  comforts  as  well  as  the 
gains  of  public  life,  while  the  toil  and  the  ferment,  the  schem- 
ing, the  declaiming,  the  writing  of  pamphlets,  the  framing  of 
resolutions,  the  arranging  of  deputations,  county  meetings,  and 
petitions,  were  for  the  opponents  who  labored  to  dislodge  him. 
The  veriest  stranger  who  for  the  first  time  threw  his  eyes 
round  the  House  of  Commons  could  distinguish  at  a  glance 
the 

"  Patriots,  bursting  with  heroic  rage," 
from  the 

"  Placemen,  all  tranquillity  and  smiles." 

With  everything  to  get,  and  nothing  to  trouble  him,  a  min- 
ister of  the  eighteenth  century  regarded  office  as  a  paradise 
from  which  no  man  of  sense  would  be  so  infatuated  as  to 
banish  himself  on  any  quixotic  grounds  of  public  duty.  That 
was  the  doctrine  of  the  school  in  which  was  reared  the  only 
English  statesman  who  has  left  a  reputation  of  the  first  or- 
der, acquired  not  in  power,  but  while  self -condemned  to  an 
almost  lifelong  opposition  ;  who  manfully  and  cheerfully  sur- 
rendered all  that  he  had  been  taught  to  value  for  the  sake  of 
principles  at  which  he  had  been  diligently  trained  to  sneer. 
So  that  to  one  who  began  his  course  weighted  and  hampered 
by  the  worst  traditions  of  the  past  we  owe  much  of  what  is 
highest  and  purest  in  our  recent  political  history ;  and  the  son 
and  pupil  of  Henry  Fox  became  in  his  turn  the  teacher  of 
Eomilly  and  Mackintosh,  of  Earl  Grey,  Lord  Althorpe,  and 
Earl  Russell. 


102  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IV. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

George  the  Third. — His  Education. — His  Assiduity  in  Public  Business. — 
His  Theory  of  Personal  Government.  —  The  King's  Friends.  —  The 
King's  Interference  in  the  Details  of  Parliament  and  of  Elections. — His 
Dislike  of  the  Whigs. — Formation  of  the  Whig  Party. — Lord  Rocking- 
ham's Administration. — His  Dismissal. — Lord  Chatham's  Government 
and  the  Successive  Changes  in  its  Composition. — General  Election  of 
1768. — Fox  chosen  for  Midhurst. — His  Political  Opinions  and  Preju- 
dices.— He  selects  his  Party  and  takes  his  Seat. — Lord  Shelburne. — 
Fox  as  a  Young  Politician. 

The  venality  and  servility  of  Parliament  presented  an  irre- 
sistible temptation  to  a  monarch  who  aimed  at  extending  the 
influence  of  the  crown.  George  the  Second,  whose  solid  and 
unambitious  intellect  had  taught  him  that  the  true  secret  of 
kingcraft  was  to  get  the  best  ministers  he  could  find,  and  then 
leave  them  responsible  for  their  own  business,  had  seen  Eng- 
land safe  through  immense  perils,  and  had  died  at  the  very 
height  of  prosperity  and  renown.1  "In  times  full  of  doubt 
and  danger  to  his  person  and  his  family,"  he  maintained,  as 
Burke  most  truly  said,  the  dignity  of  the  throne  and  the  lib- 
erty of  the  people  not  only  unimpaired,  but  improved,  for  the 
space  of  three-and-thirty  years.  A  different  policy  from  his, 
pursued  during  the  next  two-and-twenty  years,  mutilated  the 
empire,  loaded  the  nation  with  debt,  reduced  the  military  rep- 

1  "  What  an  enviable  death  !  In  the  greatest  period  of  the  glory  of 
this  country  and  of  his  reign,  in  perfect  tranquillity  at  home,  at  seventy- 
seven,  growing  blind  and  deaf,  to  die  without  a  pang  before  any  reverse 
of  fortune ;  nay,  but  two  days  before  a  ship-load  of  bad  news  !"  (Walpole 
to  Mann,  October  28,  1760.)  "Upon  the  whole"  (wrote  Lord  Walde- 
grave  in  his  old  employer's  lifetime),  "  he  has  some  qualities  of  a  great 
prince,  many  of  a  good  one,  none  which  are  essentially  bad ;  and  I  am 
thoroughly  convinced  that  hereafter  he  will  be  numbered  among  those 
patriot  kings  under  whose  government  the  people  have  enjoyed  the 
greatest  happiness." 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  103 

utation  of  Britain  lower  than  it  ever  stood  before  or  since, 
made  formidable  inroads  upon  freedom,  and  rendered  the 
crown  itself  so  irksome  a  burden  that  its  wearer  thought  very 
seriously  of  resigning  it.  Then  at  last,  when  the  disorders  en- 
gendered by  the  system  of  personal  government  as  understood 
by  George  the  Third  were  at  their  height,  the  author  of  that 
system,  most  happily  for  his  own  fame,  yielded  himself  to  the 
domination  of  a  stronger  will  even  than  his  own.  Our  poli- 
tics once  more  flowed  along  the  constitutional  channel  from 
which  thenceforward  they  rarely  diverged.  Events  nearer  to 
our  time,  and  far  more  startling  in  their  magnitude  and  more 
agreeable  to  our  patriotic  feelings,  threw  into  the  shade  the 
Middlesex  election  and  the  American  revolution ;  and  one 
who  during  the  best  years  of  his  life  had  been  known  as  the 
most  wilful  and  the  least  prosperous  of  rulers  came  to  be  re- 
membered as  a  good  easy  man,  under  whose  auspices,  as  a  re- 
ward for  his  virtue,  Trafalgar  was  added  to  the  roll  of  our 
victories.  The  popular  impression  of  George  the  Third  is  de- 
rived from  the  period  when  he  had  Pitt  for  a  master  and  Nel- 
son for  a  servant,  and  has  little  in  common  with  the  impres- 
sion which  has  stamped  itself  upon  the  minds  of  those  who 
have  studied  him  when  he  was  as  much  the  rival  as  the  sov- 
ereign of  Fox.1 

It  is  hard  to  say  whether  the  monarch  or  the  subject  suffered 
most  from  the  folly  of  a  parent.  Frederic,  Prince  of  Wales, 
died  when  his  son  was  twelve  years  old,  and  left  him  an  ex- 
ample which  he  did  not  desire  to  emulate.2  There  was  no 
family  likeness  between  the  trifler  who  could  see  nothing  in 
the  fruitless  heroism  of  Fontenoy  except  an  occasion  for 
stringing  together  a  score  of  foolish  couplets  about  Mars  and 

1  "Here  is  a  man,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  in  1784,  "who  has  divided  the 
kingdom  with  Csesar  ;  so  that  it  was  a  doubt  whether  the  nation  should 
be  ruled  by  the  sceptre  of  George  the  Third  or  the  tongue  of  Fox." 

3  "  He  had  great  virtues,"  said  a  foolish  clergyman  in  his  funeral  ser- 
mon on  the  Prince  of  Wales.  "  Indeed,  they  degenerated  into  vices.  He 
was  very  generous,  but  I  hear  that  his  generosity  has  ruined  a  great  many 
people ;  and  then  his  condescension  was  such  that  he  kept  very  bad 


104  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IV. 

Bacchus,  and  the  grave  and  laborious  administrator  who  al- 
ways regarded  the  nation's  misfortunes  as  his  own.  Half  a 
dozen  love-songs  which  lost  something  of  their  silliness  in  a 
French  dress,  the  memory  of  a  few  practical  jokes  perpetrat- 
ed at  the  expense  of  his  own  dependents,  and  some  bad  tra- 
ditions of  filial  jealousy  and  undutifulness  were  all  the  teach- 
ing which  George  the  Third  inherited  from  his  father.  But 
the  training  to  which  he  was  subjected  by  his  mother  had  a 
marked  and  durable  effect  upon  his  character  and  his  actions. 
A  narrow-minded  intriguing  woman,  with  the  Continental 
notion  of  the  relations  between  royalty  and  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, the  princess  did  her  utmost  to  imbue  the  essentially 
English  nature  of  her  son  with  the  ideas  that  pervaded  a 
petty  German  court  before  Europe  had  been  traversed 
throughout  its  length  and  breadth  by  the  legions  of  Napo- 
leon and  the  doctrines  of  Mirabeau.  Ambitious  to  see  him 
governing  as  arbitrarily  as  an  elector  of  Saxony,  and  forget- 
ting that  to  secure  the  conquests  of  Clive  and  Wolfe  abroad 
and  to  moderate  between  Pitt  and  Murray  at  home  required 
very  different  qualifications  from  those  which  sufficed  a  po- 
tentate whose  best  energies  were  spent  on  settling  how  large 
a  service  of  Dresden  china  was  to  be  given  as  commission  to 
a  cardinal  who  had  purchased  him  a  Correggio,  she  willingly 
allowed  his  strong  mind  to  remain  uncultivated  by  study  and 
overgrown  with  prejudices.  As  far  as  any  knowledge  of  the 
duties  and  the  position  which  were  before  him  were  con- 
cerned, she  kept  him  in  the  nursery  till  within  two  years  of 
the  time  that  lie  mounted  the  throne.  All  that  bedchamber 
women  and  pages  of  the  backstairs  could  tell  him  about 
royal  prerogative  and  popular  rights  she  took  care  that  he 
should  learn ;  but  at  that  point  his  political  education  ended. 
There  was  some  talk  among  his  many  tutors  of  having  a 
treatise  on  international  commerce  written  for  his  instruc- 
tion ;  but  the  work  stopped  with  the  choice  of  a  title,  and 
the  sovereign  of  a  nation  which  led,  and  at  one  conjuncture 
in  his  reign  almost  monopolized,  the  traffic  of  the  globe  went 
through  life  ignorant  of  everything  connected  with  maritime 
trade  to  a  degree  which  would  have  been  hardly  becoming 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  EOX.  105 

in  a  King  of  Bohemia.  The  Bishop  of  Norwich  prepared  him 
for  the  task  of  ruling  a  community  the  individual  members 
of  which,  to  an  extent  unknown  elsewhere,  had  long  been  in 
the  habit  of  thinking  for  themselves  in  matters  of  religion, 
by  teaching  him  to  view  with  suspicion  and  dislike  all  except 
one  of  the  many  forms  of  faith  wThich  prevailed  in  his  do- 
minions. Another  of  his  preceptors  enjoyed  the  reputation 
of  being  a  Jacobite ;  and  the  belief  that  this  gentleman  had 
contrived  to  instil  his  principles  into  the  mind  of  his  pupil 
in  part  accounted  for  the  enthusiasm  with  which,  after  the 
death  of  George  the  Second,  the  old  malcontents  of  '15  and 
'45  hastened  to  transfer  their  allegiance  from  the  white  rose 
to  the  white  horse.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  scandal  that 
was  created  among  the  Whig  families  by  the  intelligence  that 
one  of  the  very  few  books  which  their  future  king  was  ever 
authentically  known  to  have  read  was  a  Jesuit  history  of 
their  own  great  and  glorious  Revolution. 

If  to  be  a  Jacobite  was  to  regard  himself  as  "  the  great  ser- 
vant of  the  commonwealth,"  in  the  sense  in  which  that  phrase 
was  employed  by  James  the  First,  George  the  Third  was  in- 
deed a  worthy  successor  of  the  Stuarts.  He  possessed  all  the 
accomplishments  which  are  required  for  doing  business  as 
business  is  done  by  kings.  He  talked  foreign  languages  like 
a  modern  prince  of  the  blood,  and  he  wrote  like  the  master 
of  every  one  with  whom  he  corresponded.  The  meaning  of 
the  brief  and  blunt  confidential  notes  in  which  he  made 
known  his  wishes  to  an  absent  minister  never  failed  to  stand 
clearly  out  through  all  his  indifferent  spelling  and  careless 
grammar.  Those  notes  are  dated  at  almost  every  minute 
from  eight  in  the  morning  to  eleven  at  night ;  for,  as  long  as 
work  remained  on  hand,  all  hours  were  working-hours  with 
the  king.  Punctual,  patient,  self-willed,  and  self-possessed  y\y 
intruding  into  every  department;  inquiring  greedily  into 
every  detail ;  making  everbody's  duty  his  own,  and  then  do- 
ing it  conscientiously,  indefatigably,  and  as  badly  as  it  could 
possibly  be  done — he  had  almost  all  the  qualities  which  en- 
able a  man  to  use  or  misuse  an  exalted  station,  with  hardly 
any  of  the  talents  by  means  of  which  such  a  station  can  be 


106  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IV. 

reached  from  below.  If  he  had  been  born  a  private  gentle- 
man, his  intellectual  powers  would  never  have  made  him  a 
junior  lord  of  the  Treasury;  but  his  moral  characteristics 
were  such  that,  being  a  king,  he  had  as  much  influence  on  the 
conduct  of  affairs  as  all  his  cabinet  together.  A  Frederic 
the  Great  without  the  cleverness,  he  loved  his  own  way  no 
less  than  his  German  brother,  and  got  it  almost  as  frequently  ; 
with  this  difference  in  the  result,  that  in  the  score  of  years 
during  which  he  governed  according  to  his  favorite  theory 
he  weakened  England  as  much  as  Frederic  ever  aggrandized 
Prussia. 

That  theory  is  stated,  as  concisely  as  George  the  Third 
stated  everything,  in  the  letter  which  recalled  Pitt  to  his 
councils  in  1766.  "  I  know,"  wrote  the  king,  "  the  Earl  of 
Chatham  will  zealously  give  his  aid  towards  destroying  all 
party  distinctions,  and  restoring  that  subordination  to  govern- 
ment which  can  alone  preserve  that  inestimable  blessing,  lib- 
erty, from  degenerating  into  licentiousness."  It  certainly  re- 
quired self-assurance  nothing  less  than  royal  to  invite  a  states- 
man to  re-enter  the  cabinet  for  the  express  purpose  of  bolster- 
ing up  a  policy  the  first-fruits  of  which,  five  years  before,  had 
been  his  own  expulsion  from  office.  To  rise  above  faction, 
to  regard  nothing  but  individual  worth,  to  "  distribute  the 
functions  of  state  by  rotation,"  to  "withstand  that  evil  called 
connection,"  to  "root  out  the  present  method  of  parties  band- 
ing together" — such  were  the  fine  words  under  which  the 
king  disguised  his  unalterable  intention  to  be  the  real  as  well 
as  the  titular  ruler  of  the  nation.  He  had  taken  to  heart  the 
fable  of  the  bundle  of  sticks,  the  very  last  advice  which  his 
own  grandfather  would  have  given  him  on  his  death-bed ;  and 
he  was  firmly  resolved  that  no  combination  of  his  subjects 
should  ever  be  powerful  enough,  or  permanent  enough,  to 
make  head  against  his  single  will.  Blind  to  the  truth  of 
Burke's  noble  saying  that  private  honor  is  the  foundation  of 
public  trust,  and  friendship  no  mean  step  towards  patriotism, 
he  never  scrupled  to  exert  his  authority  and  to  expend  his 
own  powers  of  persuasion  and  the  nation's  money  in  order 
to  foster  disunion  among  politicians  who  had  been  accustom- 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  107 

ed  to  act  together  in  Parliament  and  in  office,  to  break  up  al- 
liances, to  sow  suspicions,  to  efface  the  recollection  of  past 
dangers  surmounted  in  common  and  old  services  mutually 
rendered  and  received.  He  wished  public  men  to  transfer 
their  fidelity  as  lightly  as  he  himself  transferred  that  which 
the  London  Gazette  styled  his  "  confidence."  Knocking  chan- 
cellors of  the  Exchequer  and  first  lords  of  the  Treasury  down 
like  ninepins,  changing  his  advisers  "as  a  parson  changes  his 
church-wardens,"  he  reduced  the  administration  of  the  country 
to  such  confusion  and  disrepute  that  in  his  more  thoughtful 
hours  he  stood  aghast  at  the  success  of  his  own  performance. 
"  How  many  secretaries  of  state  have  you  corresponded  with  V 
he  asked  an  ex-Governor  of  Gibraltar.  "  Five,  sire,"  was  the 
reply.  "  You  see  my  situation,"  said  the  king.  "  This  trade 
of  politics  is  a  rascally  business.  It  is  a  trade  for  a  scoundrel, 
and  not  for  a  gentleman." 

He  had  only  himself  to  thank.  Since  his  day,  as  well  as 
before  it,  English  monarchs  have  occasionally  so  far  failed  in 
their  constitutional  obligations  as  to  show  themselves  parti- 
sans ;  but  all  the  preference  which,  from  time  to  time,  the 
crown  has  displayed  towards  one  or  another  of  the  existing 
parties  never  produced  a  tithe  of  the  mischief  which  was 
brought  about  by  this  king,  who  set  his  heart  upon  creat- 
ing a  party  of  his  own.  When  he  first  took  that  calamitous 
project  in  hand,  he  found  everybody  whose  services  as  an 
effective  and  respectable  supporter  were  worth  securing  al- 
ready enlisted  under  the  banner  of  some  recognized  parlia- 
mentary captain.  Of  what  sort  of  materials,  asked  Burke, 
must  that  man  have  been  made  who  could  sit  whole  years  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  with  five  hundred  and  fifty  of  his 
fellow-citizens,  "without  seeing  any  sort  of  men  whose  char- 
acter, conduct,  or  disposition  would  lead  him  to  associate 
himself  with  them,  to  aid  and  be  aided,  in  any  one  system  of 
public  utility?"  The  only  recruiting -ground  that  was  left 
open  to  his  Majesty's  operations  lay  among  the  wTaifs  and 
strays  of  politics ;  among  the  disappointed,  the  discontented, 
and  the  discredited ;  among  those  whom  Chatham  would  not 
stoop  to  notice,  and  Newcastle  had  not  cared  to  buy ;  and  out 


108  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IV. 

of  such  material  as  this  was  gradually  organized  a  band  of 
camp-followers  promoted  into  the  ranks,  at  the  head  of  which 
no  decent  leader  would  have  been  seen  marching  through  the 
lobby.  These  mercenaries,  who  dubbed  themselves  the  king's 
friends  ("  as  if,"  said  Junius,  "  the  body  of  the  people  were 
the  king's  enemies"),  were  the  very  last  whom  George  the 
Third  himself  would  have  complimented  with  such  a  title. 
They  were  attached  to  him  whose  friendship  they  boasted  not 
by  the  bonds  of  affection  and  familiarity,  but  by  a  secret  un- 
derstanding in  accordance  with  which  they  placed  their  con- 
science and  their  honor  at  his  absolute  disposal ;  while  he,  on 
his  part,  undertook  that  they  should  get,  and  under  all  cir- 
cumstances should  keep,  the  best  of  everything  that  was  go- 
ing. He  loved  to  surmount  himself  in  his  privacy  with  kind- 
ly honest  folk,  not  too  clever  to  relish  his  garrulity,  and  give 
him  plenty  of  their  own  in  return,  nor  so  much  men  of  the 
world  as  to  put  him  out  of  conceit  with  his  simple  habits  and 
homely  pleasures.1  But  while  he  chose  the  associates  of  his 
intimacy  among  the  best,  if  not  the  wisest,  of  the  class  from 
which  the  companions  of  royalty  are  drawn,  he  was  altogether 
indifferent  to  the  personal  character  of  those  whom  lie  hired 
as  his  tools.  Among  the  king's  friends  in  the  Peers,  the  stew- 
ard of  the  household  was  an  avowed  profligate.  The  Earl  of 
March,  whom  to  call  an  avowed  profligate  would  be  to  absolve 
with  faint  blame,  remained  a  lord  of  the  bedchamber  for 
eight-and-twenty  years,  under  eleven  successive  prime-minis- 
ters. Another  lord  of  the  bedchamber,  who  received  a  spe- 
cial mark  of  the  royal  gratitude  in  the  shape  of  a  regiment, 
which  had  been  taken  from  the  most  respected  soldier  in  the 

1  Lord  Carlisle  declined  the  bedchamber  on  the  avowed,  and  most  avow- 
able,  ground  that  it  would  not  admit  him  to  personal  relations  with  his 
sovereign.  "I  have  no  reason,"  he  wrote,  "to  expect,  however  long  I 
may  continue,  that  either  by  assiduity,  attention,  and  respect  I  can  ever 
succeed  to  any  kind  of  confidence  with  my  master.  That  familiarity 
which  subsists  between  other  princes  and  those  of  their  servants  whose 
attachment  they  are  convinced  of  being  excluded  from  our  court  by  the 
king's  living  so  much  in  private  damps  all  views  of  ambition  which 
might  arise  from  that  quarter." 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  109 

army  as  a  punishment  for  giving  an  independent  vote  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  had  run  away  from  his  beautiful  wife 
with  at  least  one  girl  of  family.  A  third  king's  friend,  after 
making  the  crown  his  accomplice  in  an  impudent  but  unsuc- 
cessful attempt  to  swindle  his  creditors,  was  judged  too  bad  to 
remain  even  in  the  bedchamber,  and  was  accordingly  packed 
off  to  Virginia  as  its  governor.  And  as  for  the  nobleman  who 
had  charge  of  the  great  wardrobe,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  he 
and  the  Earl  of  Sandwich  were  the  only  members  of  the  Med- 
menham  Club  whom  "Wilkes  thought  worthy  of  being  admit- 
ted to  a  private  reading  of  the  "  Essay  on  Woman." 

These  were  very  different  people  from  the  excellent,  if 
somewhat  commonplace,  colonels  and  chaplains  who,  as  they 
gossipped  round  her  tea-table,  wrere  sketched  to  the  life  by 
Miss  Burney  in  those  "  Memoirs  "  which,  in  their  delightful 
prolixity  (unavoidable  when  describing  such  a  court  as 
George  the  Third's),  are  a  full  compensation  for  the  loss  of 
another  Cecilia,  or  even  another  Evelina.  The  king  knew 
very  well  whom  he  could  venture  to  live  with  after  his  own 
fashion,  and  had  no  notion  of  giving  Lord  Bottetort  or  Jerry 
Dyson  the  opportunity  of  manufacturing  a  good  story  out  of 
the  pretty  playful  ceremonies  writh  which  the  royal  household 
observed  a  princess's  birthday,  or  of  amusing  a  supper-table 
at  White's  with  a  reproduction  of  the  wry  faces  they  had 
made  over  his  Majesty's  barley-water.  What  he  wanted  from 
his  so-called  friends  was  not  their  company  or  their  conversa- 
tion, but  their  votes.  He  kept  up  just  so  much  communica- 
tion with  them  as  to  inform  them,  at  second  hand  or  at  third 
hand,  which  of  the  measures  that  he  had  empowered  his  cabi- 
net to  introduce  they  were  to  impede  and,  if  possible,  to  de- 
feat; and  what  minister  whom  he  had  spoken  fair  in  the 
closet  they  were  to  worry  in  Parliament  and  malign  at  the 
clubs.  Of  the  politicians  whom  this  system  bred  and  fostered, 
no  one  who  appreciates  what  is  most  valuable  in  our  national 
form  of  government  and  most  honorable  in  our  national  char- 
acter has  ever  yet  brought  himself  to  speak  with  patience. 
The  "  immortal  infamy,"  prophesied  for  them  by  the  far- 
sighted  among  their  contemporaries,  has  been  conferred  on 


110  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IV. 

them  in  overflowing  measure  by  the  greatest  prose-writers  of 
the  nation  which  they  disgraced  and  well-nigh  ruined.  But 
the  closely  reasoned  and  brilliantly  worded  invectives  in  which 
Burke  and  Macaulay  have  done  for  the  king's  friends  what 
Tacitus  did  for  the  informers  of  the  Roman  empire  are  not 
so  damaging  to  George  the  Third  and  his  political  retainers 
as  the  unstudied  expressions  of  vexation,  and  even  of  anguish, 
which  were  wrung  from  the  lips  of  statesmen  who  had  been 
stabbed  in  the  back  at  the  instigation  of  a  master  whom  they 
were  faithfully  and  diligently  serving.  Lord  Rockingham,  in 
his  quiet  way,  told  his  sovereign  to  his  face  that  the  efforts  of 
his  Majesty's  ministers  had  been  thwarted  by  the  officers  of 
his  Majesty's  household,  "  acting  together  like  a  corps."  Lord 
North,  piqued  by  the  inspired  insolence  of  a  subordinate  place- 
man, complained,  with  more  of  metaphor  than  was  usual  to 
him,  that  his  pillow  was  full  of  thorns.  And  Mr.  Grenville, 
who  had  a  temper  with  which  neither  king  nor  king's  favor- 
ite did  well  to  trifle,  declared  straight  out  that  he  would  not 
hold  power  at  the  will  of  a  set  of  Janizaries  wTho  might  at 
any  moment  be  ordered  to  put  the  bowstring  round  his  neck. 
The  king  maintained  his  parliamentary  body-guard  in  a 
state  of  admirable  discipline.  As  James  the  Second  wras  his 
own  minister  of  marine,  and  William  the  Third  his  own  for- 
eign secretary,  so  George  the  Third  selected  as  his  special  de- 
partment the  manipulation  of  the  House  of  Commons.  He 
furnished  the  means,  and  minutely  audited  the  expenditure, 
of  corruption.  He  protected  and  prolonged  a  bad  system 
which,  but  for  him,  would  have  died  an  earlier  death  by  at 
least  sixteen  years.  Every  reformer  of  abuses  who  had  got 
hold  of  a  thread  in  the  web  of  bribery  and  jobbery  which  was 
strangling  the  commonwealth  was  discouraged  from  follow- 
ing up  his  clew  by  the  certainty  that  it  would  lead  him  sooner 
or  later  to  the  door  of  the  royal  closet.  The  king  knew  the 
secret  history  of  all  the  hucksters  of  politics — the  amount  at 
which  they  appraised  themselves,  the  form  in  which  they  had 
got  their  price,  and  the  extent  to  which  they  were  earning 
their  pay  by  close  attendance  and  blind  subservience.  There 
never  was  a  patronage  secretary  of  the  old  school  who  might 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  Ill 

not  have  sat  at  his  feet  with  advantage.  He  had  the  true 
Treasury  whip's  eye  for  a  division,  and  contempt  for  a  de- 
bate. When  he  had  studied  the  list  of  ayes  and  noes,  and 
the  names  of  the  speakers  for  and  against,  he  had  sufficient 
materials  to  decide  how  he  was  to  distribute  his  smiles  and 
his  cold  looks — who  was  to  be  enriched,  who  was  to  be  warn- 
ed, and  who  was  to  be  beggared.  For  arguments,  however 
unanswerable — for  protestations  of  loyalty,  however  sincere 
and  pathetic — he  cared  as  little  as  for  the  virtues  and  the 
deserts  of  those  who  had  the  misfortune  to  differ  with  him. 
He  was  never  more  inexorable  than  when  dealing  with  the 
officers  whose  courage  and  conduct,  by  sea  and  land,  had  pre- 
pared for  him  so  extensive  an  empire  and  so  splendid  a  throne. 
Conway,  whose  name  was  a  proverb  for  romantic  daring,1  lost 
his  regiment  and  his  place  in  the  bedchamber  because,  in  the 
debate  on  General  Warrants,  he  stood  by  the  liberties  of  his 
country  as  quietly  and  firmly  as  he  had  confronted  the  clay- 
mores at  Culloden  and  the  Irish  bayonets  at  Fontenoy.  Barre, 
with  a  French  bullet  still  in  his  face,  begged  the  speaker  no 
longer  to  address  him  by  his  military  title,  since,  by  voting 
for  Wilkes,  he  had  forfeited  the  rank  and  the  employment 
Which  had  been  bestowed  on  him  as  the  brother  in  arms  of 
Wolfe.  But  summary  dismissal,  inflicted,  in  order  to  point 
the  example,  the  most  ruthlessly  upon  those  who  had  the 
most  distinguished  services  or  the  largest  families,  was  not  the 
only  expedient  adopted  in  order  to  deter  officers  from  doing 
their  duty  as  members  of  Parliament.  Their  sovereign  had  in 
store  for  them  another  mark  of  his  displeasure,  which  they 
felt  as  perhaps  only  soldiers  can  feel  it.  "  The  last  division," 
wrote  George  to  his  minister  (and  it  was  a  specimen  letter) 
"  was  nearer  than  some  persons  will  have  expected,  but  not 
more  than  I  thought.     I  hope  every  engine  will  be  employed 


1  "I  don't  pretend," said  a  sufficiently  brave  officer, "to  be  like  Harry 
Conway,  who  walks  up  to  the  mouth  of  a  cannon  with  as  much  coolness 
and  grace  as  if  he  was  going  to  dance  a  minuet."  At  the  battle  of  Laf- 
felt,  the  Steenkirk  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Conway  got  so  near  death 
that  one  French  hussar  had  him  by  the  hair  while  the  sword-point  of 
another  was  at  his  breast. 


112  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IV. 

to  get  those  friends  that  stayed  away  last  night  to  come  and 
support  on  Monday.  I  wish  a  list  could  be  prepared  of  those 
who  went  away,  and  those  that  deserted  to  the  minority. 
That  would  be  a  rule  for  my  conduct  in  the  drawing-room  to- 
morrow." When  the  king,  amidst  a  circle  of  exultant  place- 
men, turned  his  back  upon  men  who  had  never  turned  theirs 
upon  his  enemies,  and  sent  them  home  to  read  in  the  Gazette 
that  some  holiday  hero  who  had  never  marched  farther  afield 
than  Hounslow  had  been  promoted  over  their  heads,  they 
would  carry  their  grievance  to  the  minister  at  whose  com- 
mand they  had  sailed  across  the  world  to  encounter  the 
wounds  and  jungle  fevers  which  were  all  that  remained  to 
them  as  the  reward  of  half  a  score  of  campaigns.  There  is 
something  indescribably  pathetic  in  the  little  personal  atten- 
tions by  which  Lord  Chatham,  in  his  helplessness  and  isola- 
tion, endeavored  to  repay  to  the  slighted  and  injured  veterans 
some  part  of  that  debt  of  gratitude  which  his  sovereign  had 
thought  fit  to  repudiate.1 

1  In  1773  Chatham  drafted  a  memorial  with  his  own  hand  for  an  officer 
who  had  been  passed  over  for  political  reasons — "  a  wanton  species  of 
oppression,"  he  says,  "fatal  to  the  army  or  the  constitution."  "If  the 
spirit  of  service,"  he  writes  in  another  place, "  could  be  killed  in  an  Eng- 
lish army,  such  strokes  of  wanton  injustice  would  bid  fair  for  it."  In  the 
same  year  his  sympathy  was  requested  for  the  half-pay  captains  in  the 
navy  who  had  been  rudely  shown  the  door  by  a  ministry  which  was  on 
the  eve  of  a  war  that  reft  from  England  the  half  of  Chatham's  conquests. 
"  With  these  men,"  wrote  Barr6,  "  your  lordship  gave  law  to  the  world. 
Your  bungling  successors  are  perfectly  ignorant  of  the  use  or  application 
of  such  valuable  instruments."  One  method  by  which  Chatham  gratified 
the  old  partners  and  instruments  of  his  renown  was  by  hanging  their 
portraits  in  a  place  of  honor  in  his  house  at  Burton  Pynsent.  A  compli- 
ment of  this  nature,  paid  to  Admiral  Saunders,  who  had  commanded  at 
Quebec,  called  from  him  a  letter  which  breathed  salt  in  every  line.  "You 
have  put,"  he  writes,  "  a  plain  seaman  under  great  difficulties.  I  assure 
you  I  find  it  a  great  deal  harder  to  make  a  proper  answer  to  your  lord- 
ship's civilities  than  to  execute  any  orders  I  ever  received  from  you. 
Your  lordship  has  made  an  exchange  with  me  that  I  am  a  gainer  by  in 
every  way.  You  have  my  picture,  and  I  will  keep  your  lordship's  letter 
as  a  thing  I  am  at  least  as  proud  of  as  of  the  mark  I  wear  of  the  king's 
approbation  of  the  services  I  meant  to  do  in  that  time  which  was  truly 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  113 

To  those  who  can  for  a  moment  forget  the  misfortunes 
which  the  perversity  of  George  the  Third  entailed  upon  his 
country,  there  is  an  element  of  the  comical  in  the  roundness 
and  vehemence  with  which  he  invariably  declared  himself 
upon  the  wrong  side  in  a  controversy.  Whether  he  was  pre- 
dicting that  the  publication  of  debates  would  "annihilate  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  thus  put  an  end  to  the  most  excel- 
lent form  of  government  which  has  been  established  in  this 
kingdom ;"  or  denouncing  the  "  indecency  "  of  a  well-mean- 
ing senator  who  had  protested  against  the  double  impropriety 
of  establishing  State  lotteries,  and  then  using  them  as  an  en- 
gine for  bribing  members  of  Parliament ;  or  explaining  the 
reluctance  of  an  assembly  of  English  gentlemen  and  land- 
owners to  plunder  the  Duke  of  Portland  of  his  estates  by  the 
theory  that  there  was  no  "truth,  justice,  and  even  honor" 
among  them — he  displayed  an  inability  to  tolerate,  or  even  to 
understand,  any  view  but  his  own  which  can  only  be  account- 
ed for  by  the  reflection  that  he  was  at  the  same  time  a  partisan 
and  a  monarch.  He  never  could  forgive  a  politician  for  tak- 
ing the  right  course,  unless  it  was  taken  from  a  wrong  motive. 
When  the  Protestant  Dissenters  applied  to  be  emancipated 
from  the  obligation  of  subscribing  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  the 
king,  at  the  same  time  that  he  directed  Lord  North  to  see  that 
the  bill  for  their  relief  was  lost  in  the  House  of  Lords,  desired 
him  not  to  be  hard  upon  those  well-affected  gentlemen  who 
owed  their  seats  to  the  Nonconformists.  Even  at  the  risk  of 
encouraging  the  advocates  of  a  measure  which  his  Majesty 
dreaded  as  a  blow  to  religion  and  detested  as  an  innovation, 
nothing  must  be  done  to  diminish  the  majority  in  a  future 
Parliament  which  would  have  to  be  relied  upon  for  gagging 
the  press  in  England  and  maintaining  the  tea-duty  in  Amer- 
ica. For  George  the  Third  was,  before  everything,  an  elec- 
tioneerer.     He  had  the  names  and  the  figures  of  all  the  con-  - 

glorious.  I  am  more  pleased  with  your  thinking  me  a  friend  to  liberty 
than  with  all  the  rest.  I  am  so  to  the  bottom,  and  you  may  depend  upon 
it.  I  think  the  country  can  have  no  glory  without  it."  Saunders  had 
suffered  for  his  opinions,  and  if  he  had  lived  longer  would  undoubtedly 
have  suffered  more. 

8 


114:  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IV. 

stituencies  at  his  fingers'  ends,  and  the  consciences  of  a  good 
many  of  them  in  his  pocket.  He  was  at  home  in  the  darkest 
corners  of  the  political  workshop,  and  up  to  the  elbows  in 
those  processes  which  a  high-minded  statesman  sternly  for- 
bids, and  which  even  a  statesman  who  is  not  high-minded 
leaves  to  be  conducted  by  others.  We  find  him  paving  the 
way  for  a  new  contest  in  a  county  by  discharging  the  Out- 
standing debts  of  the  last  candidate ;  helping  the  members  of 
a  manufacturing  town  to  keep  their  seats  at  a  general  election, 
and  contributing  to  the  expense  of  defending  them  against  a 
petition  which,  no  doubt,  had  been  richly  deserved ;  subsidiz- 
ing the  patron  of  a  borough  with  a  grant  out  of  the  privy 
purse,  and  then,  on  the  eve  of  a  change  of  government,  hud- 
dling away  every  trace  of  a  bargain  which  would  not  endure 
the  inspection  of  an  honest  minister;  and  writing,  with  the 
pen  of  an  English  sovereign,  to  offer  a  subject  some  "gold 
pills"  for  the  purpose  of  hocusing  the  freeholders.  Never 
very  quick  to  pardon,  he  would  not  hear  of  an  excuse  from 
those  who  had  crossed  him  in  his  character  of  a  parliamentary 
agent.  Legge,  during  the  great  war  with  France,  had  directed 
with  consummate  ability  the  finance  of  the  most  successful 
government  that  ever  took  office  ;  but  he  had  refused  his  sup- 
port to  a  Jacobite  whom  Lord  Bute  wTas  scheming  to  bring  in 
for  Hampshire,  and  the  new  reign  had  not  lasted  six  months 
before  the  unhappy  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  found  to  his 
cost  that  the  George  the  Third  did  not  intend  to  drop  the 
electioneering  feuds  of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  At  the  interview 
which  he  obtained  in  order  to  tender  his  enforced  resignation, 
the  fallen  minister  assured  his  Majesty  that  his  future  life 
would  evince  the  sincerity  of  his  loyalty.  "  Nothing  but  your 
future  life,"  was  the  ungracious  reply,  "  can  conciliate  the  bad 
impression  I  have  received  of  you." 

A  king  so  formidable,  so  pertinacious,  so  insatiable  of  pow- 
er, and  so  very  far  from  particular  as  to  the  means  which 
he  employed  in  the  pursuit  of  it,  found  little  to  resist  him 
in  the  base  and  shifting  elements  of  which  public  life  was 
composed  in  the  third  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century.  As 
year  by  year  he  gathered  strength,  he  grew  ever  bolder  in  the 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  115 

use  of  it,  and  more  hostile  to  those  who  had  the  magnanimity 
to  resist  his  seductions  and  the  courage  to  thwart  his  will. 
For,  among  the  mob  of  high-born  self-seekers  and  needy  ad- 
venturers who  hustled  each  other  round  the  throne,  the  di<r- 
nity  of  English  statesmanship  was  still  upheld  by  a  few  men 
to  whom  their  bitterest  enemies  never  denied  the  praise  of 
being  faithful  to  their  opinions  and  to  each  other.  The  nu- 
cleus of  the  Liberal  party,  as  it  has  existed  ever  since,  was 
formed  during  the  turbid  and  discreditable  period  that  inter- 
vened between  the  fall  of  Pitt  in  1761  and  the  fall  of  Gren- 
ville  in  1765.  Loathing  the  corruption  which  was  rising 
around  them  like  a  noisome  tide,  and  foreseeing  the  perils  of 
that  deliberate  warfare  against  the  freedom  of  the  press  which 
began  with  the  arrest  of  Wilkes,  and  ended,  after  the  lapse  of 
more  than  half  a  century,  with  the  acquittal  of  William  Hone, 
a  small  knot  of  friends  found  themselves  drawn  together  f  ally 
as  much  by  moral  as  by  political  sympathy.  High  in  rank, 
with  rare  exceptions ;  young  in  years ;  and  most  of  them  too 
rich,  and  all  too  manly,  to  be  purchased,  their  programme,  as 
now  it  would  be  called,  consisted  in  little  more  than  a  deter- 
mination to  prove  to  the  world  that  there  yet  remained  some- 
body who  might  be  trusted.  The  opinions  and  aspirations  of 
the  Duke  of  Kichmond,  Lord  John  Cavendish,  and  Sir  George 
Savile  are  clearly  set  forth  in  a  confidential  letter  addressed 
by  the  Duke  of  Portland  to  their  common  chief,  the  Marquis 
of  Rockingham  :  "  As  to  the  young  men  of  property,  and  in- 
dependent people  in  both  Houses,  it  is  holding  out  a  banner 
for  them  to  come  to,  where  interest  cannot  be  said  to  point 
out  the  way,  and  where  nothing  but  public  good  is  to  be 
sought  for  on  the  plainest,  honestest,  and  most  disinterested 
terms."  The  creed  up  to  which  these  men  endeavored  to 
act  was  embodied  by  Burke  in  a  single  sentence.  "  The  prin- 
ciples of  true  politics,"  he  said,  "are  those  of  morality  en- 
larged, and  I  neither  now  do,  nor  ever  will,  admit  of  any  oth- 
er " — a  doctrine  which  in  our  day  has  been  repeated  almost  in 
the  same  words  by  another  great  spokesman  of  the  same  party.1 

1  "  It  is  not  only  true  in  morals,"  said  Mr.  Bright,  in  1877,  "  but  true  in 


116  THE   EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IV. 

These  sentiments  might  have  been  mistaken  for  the  com- 
monplaces of  opposition  by  such  as  were  old  enough  to  re- 
member how  the  patriots  of  1740  talked  while  they  were  on 
the  left  hand  of  the  Speaker,  and  how  they  acted  after  they 
had  taken  their  seats  on  the  Treasury  bench  ;  but  Lord  Rock- 
ingham and  his  followers  had  been  in  office  just  long  enough 
to  show  that,  when  they  crossed  the  floor  of  the  House,  they 
did  not  leave  their  principles  behind  them.  They  came  to 
the  rescue  at  a  moment  when  the  enforcement  of  the  Stamp 
Act  in  America  had  brought  the  empire  to  the  very  verge  of 
civil  war,  and  when  the  violent  and  despotic  proceedings  in 
which  the  prosecution  of  Wilkes  had  involved  the  executive 
government  had  agitated  the  mind  of  England  with  alarm 
and  disaffection.  In  that  dark  hour  George  the  Third  be- 
sought Lord  Rockingham  to  stand  between  him  and  the  re- 
sentment of  his  subjects,  at  home  and  across  the  seas.  The 
proposal  to  saddle  themselves  with  the  responsibility  of  striv- 
ing to  undo  the  consequences  of  foolish  and  criminal  measures 
which  they  had  strenuousty  opposed  had  no  great  charms  for 
men  all  of  whom  valued  their  reputation,  and  some  their  ease, 
a  great  deal  more  than  anything  which  office  could  bring 
them.  Nothing,  said  Burke,  but  the  strongest  sense  of  their 
duty  to  the  public  could  have  prevailed  upon  them  to  under- 
take the  king's  business  at  such  a  time.  Unattractive,  how- 
ever, as  the  invitation  was,  it  was  frankly  and  loyally  accepted. 
The  colonies  were  pacified  by  timely  conciliation ;  measures 
were  taken  to  guard  against  the  repetition  of  those  encroach- 
ments on  personal  liberty  which  had  set  the  nation  in  a  blaze  ; 
and,  as  soon  as  his  crown  was  once  more  secure,  the  king  be- 
gan to  plot  the  destruction  of  the  ministry  which  had  saved 
him.  Lord  Rockingham  by  his  wise  and  courageous  policy 
had  earned  the  confidence,  and  even  the  affection,  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  but,  in  the  phrase  of  the  day,  he  had  ruined  himself  in 
the  closet.  One  who  lived  behind  the  scenes  for  twenty  years 
was  accustomed  to  say  that  a  man  in  office  who  could  bring 

statesmanship ;  and,  in  fact,  I  would  not  dissociate  them  at  all — what  is 
true  in  morals  from  what  is  true  in  statesmanship." 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  117 

himself  to  utter  the  simple  form  of  words  "That  is  wrong" 
would  carry  his  point  in  council  though  everybody  was  against 
him.  Lord  Kockingham  was  a  brief,  a  bad,  and  a  most  reluc- 
tant speaker ;  but  he  had  a  way  of  listening  to  a  questionable 
proposal  which  was  more  alarming  to  George  the  Third  even 
than  the  eloquence  of  Pitt  or  the  lengthiness  of  Grenville. 
A  sovereign  who  had  it  in  view  to  appoint  a  young  gentle- 
man of  fourteen,  the  heir  to  a  pocket-borough,  comptroller  of 
petty  customs  in  the  port  of  London,  or  to  confer  a  secret 
pension  on  a  member  of  Parliament  who  was  not  yet  prepared 
to  let  it  be  known  that  he  had  changed  his  party,  naturally 
liked  to  be  met  half-way  by  his  confidential  adviser.  But 
Lord  Rockingham,  who  to  the  end  of  his  life  found  it  difficult 
enough  to  express  his  thoughts,  never  rose  to  the  higher  art 
of  concealing  them ;  and  the  monarch  very  soon  acquired  a 
dread  of  his  amiable  and  modest  servant,  the  frequent  mani- 
festation of  which  is  a  high  and  involuntary  tribute  to  the 
power  of  unswerving  and  unassuming  virtue. 

The  Rockinghams  took  office  in  the  summer  of  1765,  and 
by  Christmas  the  king  had  made  up  his  mind  to  be  rid  of 
them.  As  soon  as  Parliament  assembled  after  the  holidays, 
he  set  his  accustomed  machinery  to  work.  The  farce  began 
by  the  master  of  the  harriers  begging  an  audience  for  the 
purpose  of  humbly  acquainting  his  Majesty  that  his  convic- 
tions would  not  allow  him  to  support  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp 
Act.  His  Majesty,  with  the  air  of  a  Henry  the  Fourth  com- 
mending and  forgiving  a  Chief-justice  Gascoigne,  assured  his 
faithful  retainer  that  he  was  at  liberty  to  follow  the  dictates 
of  his  conscience.  Having  obtained  their  cue,  the  king's 
friends  voted  in  a  body  against  the  king's  ministers;  but 
the  consequences  of  a  breach  with  America,  as  expounded 
by  Burke  and  Pitt  in  speeches  of  extraordinary  force,  con- 
vinced a  nation  which  still  was  more  prudent  than  its  sover- 
eign, and  the  attempt  to  save  the  stamp-duty  was  defeated 
by  a  clear  majority  of  two  to  one.  George  the  Third,  in  his 
disgust  and  disappointment,  at  once  fell  intriguing  in  every 
direction  against  his  own  cabinet.  Bute,  Bedford,  and  Gren- 
ville became  in  turn  the  object  of  his  advances ;  but  none  the 


118  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [fJiiAP.  IV. 

less  did  lie  continue  to  smile  upon  the  servants  whom  he  was 
eagerly  making  an  opportunity  to  discharge.  "  The  late  good 
old  king,"  said  Chatham,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  "  had  some- 
thing about  him  by  which  it  was  possible  for  you  to  know 
whether  he  liked  you  or  disliked  you;"  but  in  this  respect 
%the  reigning  monarch  did  not  take  after  his  grandfather. 
Lord  Rockingham  afterwards  declared  that  he  had  never  en- 
joyed such  distinguished  marks  of  the  royal  kindness  as  dur- 
ing a  period  when  the  influence  of  Great  Britain  was  para- 
lyzed in  every  foreign  capital  by  the  knowledge  that  the 
existing  prime-minister  would  not  remain  in  office  ten  min- 
utes after  a  successor  could  be  found  for  him,  and  when  all 
the  placemen  of  the  king's  faction  were  openly  denouncing 
and  obstructing  the  government.  Dyson,  the  king's  spokes- 
man in  the  Commons,  and  Lord  Eglinton,  his  acknowledged 
agent  in  the  Lords,  carried  on  a  persistent  and  vexatious  op- 
position which  would  have  been  contemptible  if  maintained 
on  their  own  account,  but  which  rendered  legislation  next  to 
impossible  when  it  was  notorious  that  they  had  the  court  be- 
hind them.  Lord  Strange,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of 
Lancaster,  went  about  everywhere  asserting,  with  the  air  of 
one  who  was  fresh  from  a  confidential  interview,  that  wThen 
they  claimed  the  royal  sanction  for  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp 
Act,  the  ministers  had  been  taking  a  liberty  with  the  name 
of  their  sovereign.  Lord  Rockingham  was  not  the  man  to 
curry  favor  by  passing  himself  off  as  the  dupe  of  a  perfidy 
which  was  almost  insolent  in  its  transparence.  He  refused 
to  leave  the  presence  until  his  Majesty  had  disavowed  Lord 
Strange  in  his  own  hand  on  three  separate  scraps  of  paper, 
which  are  still  in  existence,  worth  exactly  as  much  as  they 
were  on  the  day  when  they  were  written.  He  never  saw  the 
king  without  demanding  that  the  mutineers  should  be  brought 
to  order,  and  never  quitted  him  without  an  assurance  that 
their  conduct  was  shameful,  and  a  promise  that  the  next 
fault  should  be  their  last.1     But  at  length  the  plot  was  ripe, 

1  On  one  occasion  Rockingham  came  to  the  palace  primed  with  a  fla- 
grant case  of  insubordination  on  the  part  of  Lord  Eglinton.     "  Oh,"  said 


Chat.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  119 

and  its  projector  no  longer  had  need  to  dissemble.  Early  in 
July,  1766,  Lord  Chancellor  Northington,  ill  at  ease  with  col- 
leagues whose  public  spirit  was  as  little  to  his  taste  as  the 
decency  of  their  private  habits,  got  up  a  quarrel  with  them 
over  a  proposed  code  for  Canada,  absented  himself  from  their 
councils,  and  on  hearing  that  the  cabinet  had  met  without 
him,  swore  roundly  that  it  should  never  meet  again.  Next 
morning  he  drove  to  Richmond,  advised  the  king  to  send  for 
Pitt,  and  assisted  in  the  concoction  of  a  letter  inviting  the 
Great  Commoner  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of  "an  able  and 
dignified"  government;  and  on  the  same  evening  George  the 
Third  dismissed  his  ministers  without  a  sentence  of  thanks,  a 
word  of  apology,  or  a  syllable  of  explanation  beyond  the  sin- 
gularly timed  remark  that  he  had  not  two  faces.  The  chan- 
cellor was  loaded  with  pensions  and  sinecures  as  the  wages  of 
his  treachery ;  but  Lord  Rockingham  and  his  friends  gained 
nothing  by  their  year  of  power  except  the  consciousness  of 
having  done  their  best  to  serve  a  master  who  was  the  reverse 
of  grateful.  Alone  among  all  the  administrations  which  pre- 
ceded them  and  several  which  followed  them,  they  went  out 
of  office,  the  poor  among  them  as  poor  and  the  rich  no  richer 
than  they  had  entered  it;  having  done  more  for  the  advan- 
tage of  the  nation  by  setting  its  rulers  an  example  of  disinter- 
estedness than  if  they  had  succeeded  in  placing  half  a  score  of 
useful  and  enlightened  measures  on  the  pages  of  the  Statute- 
book.1 

the  king,  "  that  is  abominable ;  but  Eglinton  is  angry  with  me  too.  He 
says  I  have  not  done  enough  for  him."  George  the  Third  at  last  went  so 
far  as  to  pledge  himself  that  if  Dyson  did  not  mend  his  ways  he  should 
go  in  the  course  of  the  next  winter ;  but  by  that  time  his  Majesty  clearly 
foresaw  that  Lord  Rockingham  himself  would  not  outlast  the  autumn. 

1  The  political  satire  of  the  day  swarms  with  passages  indicating  the 
light  in  which  George  the  Third  was  regarded  by  his  subjects  at  the  pe- 
riod when  he  held  the  purse-strings  of  bribery,  committed  the  welfare  of 
his  kingdom  to  Sandwich  and  Grafton,  and  conspired  with  Northington 
and  Rigby  against  Burke  and  Rockingham. 

"  Of  vice  the  secret  friend,  the  foe  professed ; 
Of  every  talent  to  deceive  possessed  ; 


120  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IV. 

And  now  the  king's  theory  of  what  a  ministry  ought  to  be 
was  tested  under  the  most  favorable  possible  circumstances  as 
against  the  theory  of  Burke.  Party,  said  Burke,  is  a  body  of 
men  united  to  promote  the  national  interest  by  their  joint  en- 
deavors upon  some  particular  principle  in  which  they  are  all 
agreed.  Party,  said  his  Majesty,  is  a  body  of  men  combined 
to  hinder  a  beneficent  ruler  from  selecting  for  public  employ- 
ment the  best  and  wisest  of  his  subjects,  wherever  he  can 
meet  with  them.  The  Earl  of  Chatham  (for  by  that  name 
Pitt  was  thenceforward  known)  had  so  small  a  personal  fol- 
lowing that  his  only  resource  was  to  patch  up  a  government 
out  of  the  most  respectable  odds  and  ends  on  which  he  could 
lay  his  hands.  He  would  gladly  have  strengthened  his  cab- 
inet by  a  large  draft  from  the  ranks  of  the  late  administra- 
tion; but  most  of  Lord  Rockingham's  friends  preferred  to 
retire  with  their  leader,  amidst  the  contemptuous  astonishment 
of  political  mankind.1     Conway  and  the  Duke  of  Portland 

As  mean  in  household  savings  as  profuse 
In  vile  corruption's  scandalous  abuse ; 
Mentally  blind ;  on  whom  no  ray  of  truth 
E'er  glanced  auspicious  e'en  in  bloom  of  youth. 
What  though  inimitable  Churchill's  hearse 
Saved  thee  from  all  the  vengeance  of  his  verse  ? 
Macaulay  shall  in  nervous  prose  relate 
Whence  flows  the  venom  that  distracts  the  State." 

These  lines,  given  to  the  world  in  1770,  refer  to  Mrs.  Catherine  Macaulay, 
once  famous  as  the  republican  chronicler  of  the  Stuarts.  Wilkes  called 
her  a  noble  historian.  Franklin,  in  a  letter  to  the  newspapers,  speaks  of 
"  future  Livys,  Humes,  Robertsons,  and  Macaulays,  who  may  be  inclined 
to  furnish  the  world  with  that  rara  avis,  a  true  history."  Gray  thought 
her  book  "  the  most  sensible,  unaffected,  and  best  history  of  England  that 
we  have  had  yet."  The  poor  lady  is  now  remembered  solely  as  the  ob- 
ject of  some  of  Dr.  Johnson's  coarsest,  but  certainly  not  his  least  amus- 
ing, jokes;  but  the  prediction  contained  in  the  couplets  quoted  above 
was  fulfilled  with  curious  completeness  in  Lord  Macaulay's  second  essay 
on  Chatham. 

1  "  The  Duke  of  Richmond,  Sir  George  Savile,  and  Lord  John  Caven- 
dish," said  Walpole,  "  were  devoted  to  their  party,  and  from  that  point 
of  honor,  which  did  little  to  their  judgment,  remained  inflexibly  attached 
to  that  poor  creature,  Lord  Rockingham."   Nothing  more  forcibly  brings 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  121 

remained,  bitterly  to  regret  ere  long  that  they  had  separated 
themselves  from  their  former  colleagues ;  and  the  Duke  of 
Grafton,  shaking  himself  free  from  associates  whose  influence 
had  hitherto  preserved  him  from  himself,  surrendered — little 
as  he  then  knew  it — his  last  chance  of  descending  to  posterity 
as  a  reputable  statesman.  Poor  Charles  Townshend,  who  as 
successor  of  Lord  Holland  had  been  revelling  in  the  easy  prof- 
its of  the  Pay-office,  was  unceremoniously  thrust  up  into  the 
barren  and  laborious  duties  of  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer. 
From  among  his  own  adherents  Chatham  nominated  Barre  to 
high  and  Lord  Shelburne  to  exalted  office ;  while  Lord  North- 
ington  reeled  down  into  the  presidency  of  the  council,  to 
make  room  on  the  woolsack  for  Lord  Camden,  who  had  shown 
his  independence  on  the  bench  by  discharging  Wilkes  from 
imprisonment,  and  in  the  House  of  Lords  by  denying  the 
right  of  Parliament  to  tax  America. 

The  experiment  of  a  government  based  upon  what  George 
the  Third  called  the  principle,  and  Burke  the  cant,  of  "  Not 
men,  but  measures,"  could  not  have  been  more  fairly  tried  or 
have  resulted  in  more  rapid  and  hopeless  failure.  An  admin- 
istration whose  original  members  had  ability  far  above  the 
average,  and  characters  for  the  most  part  irreproachable 
enough  to  have  qualified  them  for  sitting  in  a  modern  cab- 
inet, passed  no  laws  that  were  not  bad,  took  no  important  step 
that  was  not  disastrous,  and  in  little  more  than  two  years,  by 
the  gradual  elimination  of  its  nobler  elements,  had  degener- 
ated into  an  unscrupulous  and  unhonored  cabal.  Before  the 
end  of  the  fourth  month  one  of  those  disagreements  which 
were  of  weekly  occurrence  in  Lord  Chatham's  motley  and  ill- 
assorted  troop  led  to  the  retirement  of  all  who  had  tempora- 
rily transferred  their  allegiance  from  Lord  Rockingham  to  his 
successor  ;  all,  that  is  to  say,  but  Conway,  whom  his  evil  gen- 
ius, Horace  "Walpole,  persuaded  to  hold  his  ground  until  he 


out  the  degradation  into  which  our  public  life  had  fallen  since  the  great 
days  of  the  seventeenth  century  than  such  a  sneer  in  the  mouth  of  one 
who  affected,  at  any  rate,  to  admire  the  mutual  fidelity  of  Pym,  Hamp- 
den, and  Eliot. 


122  THE  EARLY  HISTORY    OF  [Chap.  IV. 

could  no  longer  retreat  with  credit.  Next,  the  prime-minister, 
under  the  burden  of  a  mysterious  affliction,  withdrew  himself 
from  spoken  and  at  last  even  written  communication  with  his 
bewildered  cabinet,  and  left  the  field  open  for  Townshend's 
fantastic  cleverness  and  unspeakable  folly.  But  death  carried 
off  Townshend  before  the  laughter  which  greeted  his  cham- 
pagne speech  had  well  died  away,  and  while  men  still  believed 
that  in  imposing  a  tea-duty  on  the  American  colonies  he  had 
done  a  smart  stroke  for  the  benefit  of. the  English  Exchequer ; 
and  Lord  North,  who  had  all  the  qualities  of  a  public  man 
which  Townshend  lacked  except  public  spirit,  took  the  vacant 
place  at  the  Exchequer.  The  Duke  of  Grafton,  who  was  First 
Lord  of  the  Treasury,  and  as  much  the  head  of  the  govern- 
ment as  anybody  could  be  at  a  time  when  a  good  fit  of  the 
.gout  might  at  any  moment  restore  Lord  Chatham  to  himself, 
now  began  seriously  to  look  about  for  fresh  recruits  to  supply 
the  places  ,of  those  who  had  fallen  or  deserted.  Prepared,  in 
his  distress,  to  offer  the  very  best  of  terms,  he  instinctively 
turned  to  the  Bedfords.  With  them,  as  every  parliamentary 
tactician  knew,  it  was  a  question  of  the  bounty-money,  and 
not  of  the  banner.  They  were  always  to  be  had  ;  but,  as  has 
been  wittily  and  compactly  said,  they  were  to  be  had  only  in 
the  lot.  Their  unrivalled  knowledge  of  the  market  had  taught 
them  that  by  sticking  together  they  would  each  of  them  get 
quite  as  much  and  keep  it  twice  as  long.  An  attempt  already 
had  been  made  to  bring  about  an  alliance  between  them  and 
the  Rockinghams ;  but  the  Duke  of  Bedford  insisted  as  a 
preliminary  condition  that  Conway  should  be  displaced  in 
order  to  make  room  for  the  whole  of  his  own  connection ; 
and  the  negotiation  was  broken  off  because  Lord  Rockingham, 
with  rare  nobility  of  mind,  declined  to  sacrifice  an  old  com- 
rade who  had  sacrificed  him.1     Grafton,  with  nothing  to  for- 

1  The  accounts  which  have  been  left  of  this  conference  of  July  20, 
1767,  forcibly  illustrate  the  morals  and  manners  of  the  Bloomsbury  gang, 
as  they  were  called  from  the  London  residence  of  their  leader.  The  Duke 
of  Bedford,  who  was  worthy  of  better  clients,  made  a  feeble  effort  to  ar- 
rive at  an  understanding  with  Lord  Kockingham  about  a  common  pol- 
icy ;  but  he  could  not  keejD  his  followers  for  five  minutes  together  off  the 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  123 

give,  was  less  considerate ;  and  in  January,  1767,  the  entire 
Bloomsbury  contingent  marched  into  the  ministerial  camp 
over  Conway's  prostrate  body.  Lord  Gower  became  president 
of  the  Council  in  the  room  of  Lord  Northington,  who  carried 
down  into  Hampshire  for  the  solace  of  his  declining  years  a 
cellar  of  port  and  a  budget  of  loose  stories  which,  if  he  had 
remained  in  place,  would  have  been  critically  appreciated  by 
his  new  colleagues.  Rigby,  who  had  the  promise  of  the  Pay- 
office  and  the  immediate  enjoyment  of  an  Irish  vice-treasurer- 
ship,  refused  to  kiss  hands  until  Conway  had  ceased  to  be  sec- 
retary of  state ;  and  the  seals  were  accordingly  at  once  handed 
to  Lord  Weymouth,  while  Lord  Sandwich  took  over  the  salary 
and  the  patronage  of  the  Post-office.  The  first  Parliament  of 
George  the  Third  was  now  fast  running  to  an  end.  A  disso- 
lution was  at  hand,  and  the  incoming  postmaster -general 
learned  with  dismay  that  the  Statute-book  forbade  him  to 
make  use  of  his  official  authority  for  the  furtherance  of  polit- 
ical objects.  When  boroughs  were  in  question,  Sandwich  cared 
nothing  for  the  spirit  of  the  law ;  but  as  he  had  just  enough 
respect  for  the  letter  to  keep  within  it,  he  resolved  to  see  the 
elections  out  before  assuming  nominal  possession  of  a  dignity 
every  atom  of  the  solid  influence  attached  to  which  he  was 
determined  ruthlessly  to  employ  in  the  interests  of  his  party. 

subject  that  was  next  their  hearts.  Rigby  bade  the  two  noblemen  take 
the  court  calendar  and  give  their  friends  one,  two,  and  three  thousand  a 
year  all  round.  Not  a  single  member,  he  declared,  of  the  present  cabinet 
should  be  saved.  "  What,"  interposed  Dowdeswell,  "  not  Charles  Towns- 
hend?"  "  Oh,"  said  Rigby,  "that  is  different.  He  has  been  in  opposi- 
tion." "  So  has  Conway,"  cried  Dowdeswell.  u  But  Conway  is  Bute's 
man,"  was  the  reply.  "Pray,"  was  the  rejoinder,  "is  not  Charles  Towns- 
hend  Bute's  ?"  "  Ay,  but  Conway  is  governed  by  his  brother,  who  is 
Bute's."  "  So  is  Townshend  by  his  brother,  who  is  Bute's."  "  But  Lady 
Ailesbury  is  a  Scotchwoman."  "  So  is  Lady  Dalkeith."  Any  one  who 
turns  from  this  despicable  wrangle  to  Lord  Stanhope's  narrative  of  the 
overtures  made  by  Pitt  to  the  Whigs  in  1804,  and  of  the  spirit  in  which 
they  were  received,  may  estimate  the  reformation  which  forty  years  had 
wrought  in  the  tone  of  English  politics;  and,  to  whatever  party  he  may 
himself  belong,  he  will  acknowledge  the  debt  which,  on  that  score  if  on 
no  other,  our  country  owes  to  Fox. 


124:  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IV. 

The  general  election  which  was  held  in  the  spring  of  1768 
disclosed  a  state  of  things  most  alarming  to  all  except  the 
dull,  the  thoughtless,  and  the  dishonest.  There  was  nothing 
fanciful  in  the  parallel  which  it  pleased  contemporary  writers 
to  draw  between  the  England  of  Chatham  and  the  Eome  of 
Pompey  and  Lucullus.  Once  again  in  the  course  of  the 
world's  history  immense  foreign  conquests  had  been  made  by 
a  free  and  self-governing  people.  Once  again  political  insti- 
tutions which  had  served  their  purpose  as  a  machinery  for 
enabling  a  nation  to  conduct  its  domestic  affairs  were  exposed 
to  a  sudden  and  unexpected  strain  by  the  additional  burden 
of  a  vast  external  empire.  And  once  again  the  spoils  of  dis- 
tant provinces  were  brought  home  to  purchase  the  votes  of 
electoral  bodies,  incapable  of  discharging  or  even  understand- 
ing their  increased  responsibilities,  and  altogether  out  of  sym- 
pathy wTith  what  was  most  intelligent  and  respectable  in  the 
community.  The  unreformed  constituencies  of  England  and 
Scotland  no  more  represented  the  British  energy,  foresight, 
and  valor  which  had  triumphed  under  Clive  and  Hawke  than 
the  corrupt  mob  which  gave  its  suffrages  to  the  candidate  who 
distributed  the  largest  doles,  exhibited  the  most  numerous 
pairs  of  gladiators,  and  threw  open  the  stateliest  public  baths 
for  the  lowest  fees  had  a  right  to  speak  for  the  Marsian  far- 
mers and  Ligurian  mariners  whose  swords  and  oars  had  recon- 
quered Spain  and  conquered  Asia.  The  offices  of  electioneer- 
ing agents  had  been  besieged  through  the  winter  which  pre- 
ceded the  election  by  rich  army  contractors  eager  to  sit  in  the 
first  Parliament  that  had  been  chosen  since  the  Peace  of  Paris 
had  allowed  them  to  wind  up  their  accounts  with  the  War- 
office  ;  by  planters  who  had  acquired  their  notions  of  constitu- 
tional government  in  the  management  of  a  sugar-estate  in 
Barbadoes ;  by  members  of  council  from  Calcutta  and  Ma- 
dras who,  out  of  a  nominal  salary  of  thirty  pounds  a  month, 
accumulated  baronial  and  even  ducal  revenues  so  fast  that  the 
directors  complained  that  none  but  inexperienced  youths  re- 
mained beyond  the  seas  to  fill  the  most  elevated  posts  in  the 
service  of  the  Company.  The  country  was  literally  deluged 
with  money.     "Without  connections,"  said  Lord  Chatham, 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  125 

"without  any  natural  interest  in  the  soil,  the  importers  of 
foreign  gold  have  forced  their  way  into  Parliament  by  such  a 
torrent  of  corruption  as  no  private  hereditary  fortune  could 
resist."  The  sums  lavished  upon  bribery  in  the  counties  and 
the  great  cities  exceeded  all  that  had  been  heard  of  in  the 
past,  and  the  patrons  of  close  boroughs  got  anything  they 
liked  to  name.  George  Selwyn  received  nine  thousand  pounds 
for  the  double  seat  at  Ludgershall.  The  Mayor  and  Aldermen 
of  Oxford,  with  a  sort  of  perverted  public  spirit,  refused  to 
elect  any  candidate  who  would  not  undertake  to  assist  them 
in  wiping  off  their  town  debt.  Some  boroughs  were  adver- 
tised in  the  newspapers ;  others  were  negotiated  on  the  com- 
mercial-travelling system  by  attorneys  who  went  a  round  of 
the  country-houses  on  horseback ; ■  a  great  change  since  the 
autumn  of  1640,  when  Pym  and  Hampden  rode  up  and  down 
England  to  promote  the  election  of  stanch  and  trustworthy 
Puritans,  "wasting  their  bodies  much  in  carrying  on  the 
cause."  Wilkes,  in  a  piece  marked  by  more  humor  than  del- 
icacy (which,  to  do  him  justice,  was  seldom  the  case  with  what 
he  gave  to  print),  challenged  his  readers  to  deny  that  a  share 
in  the  British  legislature  was  bought  and  sold  as  publicly  as  a 
share  in  the  New  River  Company.  It  fared  ill  with  those 
noblemen  and  gentlemen  who  had  been  looking  forward  to 
the  dissolution  as  an  opportunity  of  giving  their  heirs  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  senatorial  career.  Lord  Chesterfield  applied  be- 
times to  a  parliamentary  jobber  with  an  offer  of  five-and- 
twenty  hundred  pounds  if  a  safe  seat  could  be  provided  for 
young  Mr.  Stanhope,  whose  education  had  by  this  time  been 
brought  to  as  high  a  point  as  nature  seemed  willing  to  sanc- 
tion ;  but  the  man  told  him  plainly  that  already  there  was  no 
such  a  thing  as  a  borough  to  be  had,  since  the  East  and  West 
Indians  had  secured  them  all  at  the  rate  of  three,  four,  and  (as 
the  market  hardened)  of  five  thousand  pounds  a  seat.3 

1  Hickey,  the  most  notorious  of  these  fellows,  survives  in  Goldsmith's 
"  Retaliation,"  with  the  character  of  "  a  blunt  pleasant  creature,"  and  in 
company  that  is  far  too  good  for  him. 

3  "Mayor.  But,  after  all,  Master  Touchit,  I  am  not  so  over-fond  of  these 
nabobs.     For  my  part,  I  had  rather  sell  myself  to  somebody  else. 


126  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IV. 

There  was  one  father  who  had  no  intention  of  allowing  any 
difficulty  about  money  to  interfere  with  his  ideas  of  paternal 
dut}T.  Five  thousand  pounds  were  the  same  as  five  hundred 
to  Lord  Holland,  when  it  was  a  question  of  doing  something 
to  make  Charles  a  man  before  his  time.  Though  the  lad  had 
barely  turned  nineteen  when  Parliament  was  dissolved,  a 
family  arrangement  was  made  for  introducing  him  into  pub- 
lic life  as  soon  as  he  cared  to  enter  it.  Lord  Ilchester  was 
anxious  to  find  some  serious  occupation  for  his  son,  Lord 
Stavordale,  who  was  very  little  older  than  Charles,  and  had 
plunged  almost  as  deep  in  the  pleasures  of  the  town ;  so  the 
two  brothers  clubbed  together  to  hire  their  boys  a  borough,  as 
they  might  have  rented  them  a  manor  to  shoot  over  in  the 
vacation.  They  selected  Midhurst,  the  most  comfortable  of 
constituencies  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  representative  ;  for 
the  right  of  election  rested  in  a  few  score  of  small  holdings, 
on  wThich  no  human  being  resided,  distinguished  among  the 
pastures  and  stubbles  that  surrounded  them  by  a  large  stone 
set  up  on  end  in  the  middle  of  each  portion.  These  burgage- 
tenures,  as  they  were  called,  had  all  been  bought  up  by  a  sin- 
gle proprietor,  Yiscount  Montagu,  who,  when  an  election  was 
in  prospect,  assigned  a  few  of  them  to  his  servants  with  in- 
structions to  nominate  the  members  and  then  make  back  the 
property  to  their  employer.1  This  ceremony  wras  performed 
in  March,  1768 ;  and  the  steward  of  the  estate,  who  acted  as 
returning  officer,  declared  that  Charles  James  Fox  had  been 
duly  chosen  as  one  of  the  burgesses  for  Midhurst  at  a  time 

"  Touchit.  And  why  so,  Mr.  Mayor  ? 

"  Mayor.  I  don't  know.  They  do  a  mortal  deal  of  harm  in  the  country. 
Why,  wherever  any  of  them  settles,  it  raises  the  price  of  provisions  for 
thirty  miles  round.  People  rail  at  seasons  and  crops.  In  my  opinion,  it 
is  all  along  with  these  folks  that  things  are  so  scarce. 

"  Touchit.  You  talk  like  a  fool.  Suppose  they  have  mounted  the  beef 
and  mutton  a  trifle.  Ain't  we  obliged  to  them  too  for  raising  the  value 
of  boroughs  ?  You  should  always  set  one  against  t'other."— Foote, 
Nabob,  act  ii.,  scene  2. 

1  In  the  year  1794  the  number  of  permanent  voters  for  Midhurst  was 
returned  as  one.  By  that  time  Lord  Egremont  had  acquired  the  bur- 
gage-holds  at  a  cost  of  forty  thousand  guineas. 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  127 

when  that  young  gentleman  was  still  amusing  himself  in 
Italy.  He  remained  on  the  Continent  during  the  opening 
session  of  the  new  Parliament,  which  met  in  May  in  order  to 
choose  a  speaker 1  and  transact  some  routine  business ;  and  it 
was  not  until  the  following  winter  that  he  made  his  first  ap- 
pearance upon  a  stage  where,  almost  from  the  moment  of  his 
entry,  he  became  the  observed  of  all  observers. 

Charles  Fox  began  his  political  course  utterly  unprovided 
with  any  fixed  set  of  political  opinions.  Older  than  his  years 
in  nothing  but  his  looks  and  his  opportunities,  his  outfit  for 
the  career  of  a  statesman  consisted  in  a  few  superficial  preju- 
dices, the  offspring  rather  of  taste  than  of  conviction ;  a  few 
personal  alliances  which  lie  had  formed  for  himself ;  and  not 
a  few  personal  dislikes  which  he  had,  for  the  most  part,  in- 
herited from  his  father.  Lord  Holland,  by  this  time,  was  the 
Ishmael  of  English  politics.  By  Chatham,  and  Chatham's  fol- 
lowing, he  could  not  even  hope  to  be  forgiven.  The  unkind- 
ness,  and,  as  he  regarded  it,  the  ingratitude,  of  the  Bedfords 
forever  rankled  in  his  memory.  Against  the  Grenvilles  he 
had  a  grudge  of  a  more  solid  nature.  In  November,  1764,  it 
was  intimated  to  George  Greuville  that  Charles  Townshend 
had  his  eye  upon  the  Pay-office.  "  I  rather  understood,"  wrote 
the  prime-minister's  informant,  "  that  he  would  be  content  to 
wait  for  Lord  Holland's  death.  He  said  he  wished  him  dead, 
and  so  he  believed  did  everybody."  But  the  paymaster's 
health,  as  we  learn  in  a  boyish  letter  from  his  son,  mended 
during  the  winter ;  and  in  May,  1765,  the  king,  urged  by 
Grenville,  who  was  urged  by  Townshend,  commanded  him  to 
resign  the  prize  for  the  retention  of  which  he  had  sacrificed 
the  last  shred  of  his  reputation  and  become  embroiled  in  the 
most  disagreeable  of  his  hundred  quarrels.  And,  finally,  when 
Grenville  fell  and  was  succeeded  by  Kockingham,  Lord  Hol- 

1  They  chose  Sir  John  Cust,  who  went  through  the  time-honored  force 
of  self-depreciation,  and  duly  submitted  to  be  forced  up  the  steps  of  the 
chair,  expostulating  with  carefully  graduated  vehemence  which  grew 
fainter  as  he  ascended  from  the  floor.  The  poor  man  had  more  reason 
for  his  reluctance  than  he  knew  of  at  the  time,  for  a  single  session  of 
Wilkes  killed  him. 


128  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IV. 

land  made  advances,  equally  unexpected  and  unwelcome,  tow- 
ards a  reconciliation  with  the  party  whom  more  than  all  others 
he  had  unpardonably  injured — advances  which  the  new  min- 
ister received  with  a  quiet  scorn  that  brought  painfully  home 
to  the  old  statesman  the  consciousness  that  he  was  feared  as 
little  as  he  was  confided  in,  and  honored  even  less  than  he 
was  loved. 

With  the  capacity  for  self-deception  which  is  nowhere  so 
potent  as  in  the  breast  of  a  politician,  Lord  Holland  contrived 
to  regard  himself  as  a  good,  easy  man,  upon  whom  the  world 
had  borne  too  hard.  "  Don't  ever,  Charles,"  he  would  say  to 
his  favorite  boy,  "  make  any  exception,  or  trust  as  I  did. 

1  Of  all  court  service  know  the  common  lot : 
To-day  'tis  done ;  to-morrow  'tis  forgot.' 

"Well !  I  may  thank  myself,  and  have  nothing  to  do  but  to 
forget  it."  Charles  was  quite  prepared  to  resent  the  wrongs 
of  a  father  from  whom  he  had  known  nothing  but  kindness ; 
and,  with  a  strange  ignorance  of  his  own  nature,  looked  upon 
himself  as  destined  to  live  upon  bad  terms  with  nine  out  of 
ten  of  his  equals  and  contemporaries.  He  could  see  no  party 
which  he  was  inclined  to  join,  and  no  idol  which  he  would 
condescend  to  worship.  He  dutifully  refused  to  admire  Chat- 
ham, though  his  animosity  was  softened  when  the  caprice  of 
that  great  man,  by  oversetting  the  Kockingham  administra- 
tion, did  something  to  expiate  the  slight  wThich  the  Whigs 
had  put  upon  Lord  Holland.  The  Bedfords,  one  and  all,  he 
cordially  detested.  "  As  for  politics,"  he  writes  from  Florence 
to  Macartney  in  1767,  "I  am  very  little  curious  about  them, 
for  almost  everything  I  hear  at  this  distance  seems  unintelli- 
gible. I  am  ill-natured  enough  to  be  very  sorry  whenever  I 
hear  there  is  any  chance  of  the  Bedfords  being  pleased,  and 
that  is  all  I  care  about."  "You  said,"  he  complains  from 
Naples  to  another  correspondent,  "  you  would  write  to  me  if 
you  could  find  anything  I  should  like  to  hear.  In  your  last 
to  Ste.,  you  say  the  Bedfords  have  been  cruelly  used.  Did 
you  not  think  I  should  be  glad  to  hear  that?  But  I  am  sadly 
afraid  you  are  imposed  upon,  and  they  have  not  been  so  ill- 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  129 

used  as  I  always  wish  them  to  be.  Let  them  feel  how  sharper 
than  a  serpent's  tooth  it  is  to  have  a  thankless  friend.  They 
are  now,  I  understand,  joined  with  Lord  Kockingham,  the 
only  party  whom  they  have  not  already  tried  at.  Lord  Bute, 
the  Duke  of  Grafton,  and  Lord  Chatham  have  sent  them 
empty  away,  and  I  hope  and  believe,  if  the  others  come  in, 
they  will  serve  them  in  the  same  manner."  The  letters  which 
Charles  Fox  wrote  and  answered  during  the  last  twelve  or 
fifteen  months  of  the  period  which  (little  as  he  would  have 
approved  the  expression)  must  be  called  his  boyhood  show 
that  he  wTas  already  keenly  alive  to  politics,  though  his  inter- 
est in  them  was  entirely  of  a  personal  and  petty  description. 
He  was  greatly  exercised  about  his  father's  ambition  to  ex- 
change his  barony  for  an  earldom,  and  it  was  at  his  sugges- 
tion that  Lord  Holland  showed  himself  at  court,  in  order  to 
press  his  suit  for  a  favor  which  was  flatly  and  ungraciously 
refused.1  When  Lord  Carlisle  was  made  Knight  Commander 
of  the  Thistle,  his  schoolfellow  expressed  his  delight  in  a  sen- 
tence that  would  have  raised  high  the  paternal  hopes  of  Lord 
Chesterfield.  "  I  think  it,"  he  says,  "  one  of  the  best  things 
that  has  been  done  this  great  while."     But  the  very  enthusi- 


,uDear  Charles," Lord  Holland  writes, "I  hope  I  shall  not  mind  it; 
but  your  advice  has  been  followed  with  as  bad  success  as  possible.  I  was 
at  court  yesterday  for  the  first,  and  I  believe  last,  time.  I  had  as  much  to 
say  as  any  man  ever  had,  and  said  it.  I  saw  obstinate  determined  denial, 
without  any  reason  given ;  nor  had  I  any  occasion  to  follow  your  advice, 
1  to  take  a  shuffling  answer  for  a  denial,'  for  I  was  not  flattered  even  by  a 
shuffling  answer,  but  told  it  would  be  very  inconvenient  to  do  it  now, 
without  being  told  why."  At  the  time  Lord  Holland  was  learning  from 
the  royal  lips  how  low  he  had  fallen,  his  old  rival  was  receiving,  though 
not  enjoying,  the  most  signal  homage  that  a  sovereign  ever  paid  to  a  sub- 
ject. Letters  in  the  king's  hand  were  going  thrice  a  week  to  Lord  Chat- 
ham, praying  him  to  emerge  from  his  retirement,  if  it  were  but  for  the 
space  of  a  single  interview ;  entreating  him  to  leave  no  means  untried 
for  restoring  his  invaluable  health  ;  and  earnestly  beseeching  him,  if  he 
could  give  nothing  else,  not  to  deprive  his  Majesty's  government  of  the 
protection  of  his  name.  Such  were  now  the  relative  positions  of  a  pair 
of  statesmen  who,  ten  years  before,  stood  on  a  level  in  the  estimation  of 
mankind. 

9 


130  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IV. 

asm  and  energy  with  which  he  discoursed  on  coronets  and 
green  ribbons  would  have  indicated  to  a  discerning  judge 
that  Charles  Fox  was  not  the  stuff  out  of  which  gold  sticks 
are  shaped.  Making  no  pretension  to  a  public  spirit  which 
seldom  springs  of  itself  in  the  breast  of  an  English  lad  still  in 
his  teens,  and  which  grows  all  the  more  healthily  for  not  hav- 
ing been  forced ;  expatiating  in  a  free,  dashing  style  on  what- 
ever happened  to  be  the  genuine  humor  of  the  moment; 
throwing  into  the  all-absorbing  business  of  the  private  theat- 
ricals, which  were  the  special  and  time-honored  pastime  of  his 
family,  more  heart  and  sense  than  can  be  found  in  all  the  Bed- 
ford and  Grenville  correspondence  together — he  gave  promise 
of  a  sincerity,  an  audacity,  an  intensity,  which  would  some  day 
be  unwonted  and  most  salutary  elements  in  the  stagnant  and 
vitiated  atmosphere  of  St.  Stephen's. 

Fox  took  his  seat  in  November,  1768,  and  enrolled  himself 
without  hesitation  in  the  ranks  of  the  ministerialists.  Lord 
Holland  had  chosen  a  most  opportune  moment  for  sending 
him  into  Parliament.  In  the  opinion  of  that  veteran  place- 
man, there  was  only  one  bench  in  the  House  on  which  a  wise 
man  would  care  to  sit ;  but  room  would  easily  be  found  there 
for  the  son  of  one  who  had  quarrelled  to  the  death  with  al- 
most every  possible  prime- minister.  If  Chatham  had  still 
been  at  the  head  of  affairs,  and  Shelburne  secretary  of  state, 
Charles  Fox  could  not  have  looked  for  office,  and,  indeed, 
would  have  had  too  much  spirit  to  accept  it ;  but  between  the 
spring  and  the  winter  sessions  of  1768  a  great  change  had  been 
effected  in  the  constitution  of  the  ministry.  Lord  Shelburne 
had  always  desired  to  keep  the  Bedfords  at  a  distance,  and 
had  been  at  daggers  drawn  with  them  ever  since  their  intro- 
duction into  the  government.  His  faults  and  his  virtues  alike 
rendered  it  more  than  difficult  for  him  to  act  with  them  as  col- 
leagues. From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  Lord  Shelburne's 
life  fate  seemed  to  have  ordained  that  things  should  never  go 
easily  inside  a  cabinet  which  held  him,  and  the  key  to  that 
fatality  is  no  longer  a  mystery.  His  racy  and  very  candid 
autobiography  bears  on  every  page  the  impress  of  an  acute, 
a  forcible,  and  a  most  original  intellect,  which  had  failed  to 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  131 

work  itself  free  from  conceit  in  the  most  subtle  of  all  its  in- 
numerable forms.  A  man  who  has  too  much  sense  to  over- 
rate his  own  qualities  will  often  make  amends  to  his  self- 
esteem  by  underrating  his  -  neighbor's;  and  Lord  Shelburne, 
while  he  had  too  strong  a  sense  of  the  becoming  to  praise 
himself  even  in  his  private  diary,  could  not  endure  to  admit, 
with  regard  to  others,  that  any  fame  was  deserved,  any  mo- 
tives pure,  or  any  conduct  meritorious.  While  still  a  youth, 
he  occasionally  put  enough  restraint  upon  himself  to  preserve 
an  outward  show  of  respect  for  some  powerful  and  eminent 
statesman  who  was  old  enough  to  be  his  father;  but  there 
was  no  reverence  in  his  composition,  and  in  his  secret  thoughts 
he  had  less  mercy  for  his  patrons  than  a  reasonably  good- 
natured  politician  bestows  upon  his  adversaries.  Lord  Bute 
gave  him  his  unreserved  confidence  at  a  time  when  that  con- 
fidence was  well  worth  having,  and  offered  him  high  prefer- 
ment long  before  he  had  earned  it  by  his  public  performances. 
Lord  Chatham,  against  the  wish  of  the  king,  made  hiin  secre- 
tary of  state  at  nine-and-twenty ;  and,  in  requital  for  their 
kindness,  he  amused  the  leisure  of  his  later  years  by  drawing 
characters  of  Bute  and  Chatham  less  pleasing  than  any  which 
can  be  found  elsewhere  than  on  the  fly-sheet  of  a  lampoon. 
A  man  who  lived  so  much  in  the  world  as  Lord  Shelburne 
could  not  conceal  from  the  world  so  marked  a  feature  of  his 
disposition ;  and  his  reputation  for  incurable  treachery,  for 
which  nothing  that  he  actually  did,  when  judged  by  the  stand- 
ard of  his  age,  will  sufficiently  account,  was  principally  due  to 
the  consciousness  from  which  his  political  associates  could  not 
free  themselves  that,  however  fair  he  might  speak  them  to 
their  faces,  at  the  bottom  of  his  soul  he  regarded  them  as  one 
less  honest  and  less  capable  than  the  other. 

If  Lord  Shelburne  (to  borrow  an  expressive  phrase  from 
the  dictionary  of  French  politics)  was  a  bad  bedfellow  under 
the  most  favorable  circumstances,  he  was  not  likely  to  lie  com- 
fortably with  his  head  on  the  same  bolster  as  the  Bedfords. 
Constitutionally  unable  even  to  work  for  the  good  of  the  na- 
'tion  in  hearty  concert  with  men  who  desired  to  benefit  the 
nation  as  sincerely  and  eagerly  as  himself,  he  found  his  posi- 


132  THE  EARLY  HISTOKY   OF  [Chap.  IV- 

tion  intolerable  in  the  midst  of  intriguers  who  grudged  him 
his  premature  advancement,  who  scouted  him  because  he  was 
not  of  their  clique,  and  who,  if  they  had  not  dreaded  him  for 
his  insight  and  ability,  would  have  despised  him  for  his  pub- 
lic spirit ;  for  Shelburne,  in  his  disinterested  zeal  for  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  commonwealth,  was  a  generation  ahead  of  his 
time.  He  was  too  clever  to  be  blinded  when  any  scheme  for 
plundering  the  Exchequer  was  in  train  among  those  who  wTere 
paid  to  protect  it ;  and  there  existed  no  means  of  buying  the 
complicity  of  a  great  nobleman  who  was  at  the  time  so  good 
a  man  of  business  that  he  knew  how  to  live  in  style  and  in 
comfort  on  one  fourth  of  the  income  which  he  drew  from  his 
estates.1  This  standing  incompatibility  in  private  aims  was 
aggravated  by  differences  of  opinion  on  the  gravest  and  most 
pressing  matters  of  state.  Nothing  had  done  so  much  to  em- 
phasize and  promote  the  antipathy  between  his  Majesty's 
ministry  in  London  and  his  Majesty's  subjects  in  America  as 
the  accession  of  the  Bedfords,  who  came  into  office  breathing 
fire  and  fury  against  the  recalcitrant  colonies.  Shelburne,  the 
pupil  of  Chatham  and  the  friend  of  Franklin,  and  one  of  the 
very  few  English  statesmen  wTho  had  taken  the  trouble  to 
make  himself  master  of  a  problem  as  intricate  and  momentous 
as  ever  statesmanship  was  called  upon  to  solve,  had  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  timely  and  persistent  measures  of  conciliation 
would  mend  the  breach  between  the  mother-country  and  her 
dependencies,  without  commissioning  a  single  additional  sloop 
of  war,  or  putting  another  soldier  on  board  a  transport.  Eigby, 
on  the  other  hand,  who  cursed  and  swore  when  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act  was  alluded  to  in  his  presence,  and  Sandwich,  who 
never  spoke  of  the  Americans  except  as  rebels  and  cowards, 
openly  proclaimed  that  three  battalions  and  half  a  dozen  frig- 
ates would  soon  bring  New  York  and  Massachusetts  to  their 
senses.     They  became  ministers  on  an  express  understanding 

1  "  Lord  Shelburne,"  said  Johnson,  "  told  me  that  a  man  of  high  rank 
who  looks  into  his  own  affairs  may  have  all  that  he  ought  to  have,  all 
that  can  be  of  any  use  or  appear  with  any  advantage,  for  five  thousand 
pounds  a  year." 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  133 

that  the  British  government,  in  its  dealings  with  the  provin- 
cial assemblies,  should  thenceforward  employ  undisguised  co- 
ercion and  insist  upon  unconditional  submission;  and  they 
grasped  at  this  congenial  policy  with  the  greater  zest  because 
they  regarded  it  as  one  of  the  two  levers  which  might  be  so 
wielded  as  to  force  Shelburne  out  of  the  cabinet. 

They  had  another  weapon  forged  to  their  hands  in  the  ques- 
tion of  Corsica.  That  island  had  long  been  rather  a  thorn 
than  a  jewel  in  the  crown  of  its  mistress,  Genoa,  who  had 
enough  ado  to  preserve  her  own  independence  without  trench- 
ing upon  the  liberty  of  others.  The  Genoese,  after  more  than 
one  abortive  negotiation,  sold  their  intractable  little  depend- 
ency to  Louis  the  Fifteenth  —  a  bargain  which  ultimately 
proved  serious  for  France  and  fatal  to  Genoa,  inasmuch  as 
one  incident  in  the  transaction  was  that  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
was  born  a  Frenchman.  The  agreement  between  dealer  and 
customer  was  signed  in  May,  1768 ; ,  but  the  delivery  of  the 
goods  was  a  less  easy  matter.  The  islanders  made  a  stout 
resistance ;  their  cause  was  dignified  by  the  respectable  char- 
acter, and  recommended  to  the  notice  of  Europe  by  the  cos- 
mopolitan accomplishments,  of  their  leader ;  and  the  jealousy 
of  England  was  especially  excited  by  the  prospect  of  her  an- 
cient enemy  acquiring  a  foothold  in  the  Mediterranean.  The 
attention  of  London  society  had  been  attracted  to  Corsica  by 
a  well-timed  book  of  travels;  for  Boswell,  who  had  been  sent 
abroad  to  study  law,  had  found  his  way  to  Paoli's  headquar- 
ters, and,  returning  home  with  plenty  to  tell,  had  written 
what  is  still  by  far  the  best  account  of  the  island  that  has 
ever  been  published.  Sympathy  for  Corsica  was  as  much  the 
fashion  with  the  English  Whigs  as  sympathy  for  America 
became,  seven  years  later,  among  the  more  enlightened  mem- 
bers of  the  French  nobility.  Burke  lent  his  eloquence  to  the 
cause.  The  young  Duke  of  Devonshire,  then  on  his  travels 
in  Italy,  assisted  the  patriots  with  money,  and  (which  in  his 
case  was  a  much  surer  proof  of  devotion)  gave  himself  the 
trouble  of  collecting  subscriptions  for  their  benefit.  Chat- 
ham's old  admirals,  who  had  beaten  the  French  three-deckers 
up  and  down  the  Channel,  were  wild  at  the  notion  of  a  fleet 


134  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IV. 

of  heavy-laden  troop-ships  being  allowed  to  sail  unmolested 
between  Toulon  and  Ajaccio.  The  theory  that  British  inter- 
ests would  suffer  by  our  acquiescence  in  the  subjugation  of 
Corsica — a  theory  which  was  backed  by  the  high  authority  of 
Frederic  the  Great — was  warmly  urged  by  Shelburne  in  the 
cabinet,  and  would  have  prevailed  but  for  the  strenuous  op- 
position of  the  Bedfords.  Eight  or  wrong,  the  party  of  neu- 
trality were  supported  by  the  mercantile  community,  who  dur- 
ing a  generation  past  had  been  fighting  the  French  for  one 
year  out  of  every  two,  and  were  in  no  hurry  to  begin  again ; 
and  by  the  Jacobites,  who  could  not  persuade  themselves  that 
it  was  safe  to  encourage  people  like  the  Corsicans,  with  so 
very  much  the  air  of  insurgents  about  them,  unless  we  were 
prepared  to  give  at  least  the  appearance  of  approval  to  the 
doctrine  of  lawful  resistance.  Lord  Mansfield  declared  with 
satisfaction  that  the  ministry  was  too  weak,  and  the  nation 
too  wise,  for  war;  and  Dr.  Johnson,  the  most  pithy  exponent 
of  the  common-sense  view,  whenever  common-sense  coincided 
with  Toryism,  shocked  his  ardent  disciple  almost  out  of  his 
allegiance  by  bidding  him  mind  his  own  affairs  and  leave  the 
Corsicans  to  theirs.1 


1  How  real  was  the  effect  produced  by  Boswell's  narrative  upon  the 
opinion  of  his  countrymen  may  be  gathered  from  the  unwilling  testi- 
mony of  those  who  regretted  its  influence,  and  thought  little  of  its  au- 
thor. "  Foolish  as  we  are,"  wrote  Lord  Holland,  "  we  cannot  be  so  fool- 
ish as  to  go  to  war  because  Mr.  Boswell  has  been  in  Corsica ;  and  yet, 
believe  me,  no  better  reason  can  be  given  for  siding  with  the  vile  inhab- 
itants of  one  of  the  vilest  islands  of  the  world,  who  are  not  less  free  than 
all  the  rest  of  their  neighbors,  and  whose  island  will  enable  the  French 
to  do  no  more  harm  than  they  may  do  us  at  any  time  from  Toulon." 
Horace  Walpole  credited  Boswell  with  having  procured  Paoli  his  pen- 
sion of  a  thousand  a  year  from  the  British  Exchequer.  Gray  confessed 
that  the  work  had  pleased  and  moved  him  strangely,  and  had  shown 
that  "  any  fool  may  write  a  most  valuable  book  by  chance  if  he  will 
only  tell  us  what  he  heard  and  saw  with  veracity."  It  is  difficult  to  un- 
derstand how  Gray  could  have  failed  to  recognize  in  the  volume  which 
delighted  him  the  indications  of  that  rare  faculty  (whose  component  ele- 
ments the  most  distinguished  critics  have  confessed  themselves  unable 
to  analyze)  which  makes  every  composition  of  Boswell's  readable,  from 


Chap.  IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  135 

If  Chatham  had  been  in  a  state  to  make  himself  even  oc- 
casionally felt  in  the  councils  of  the  government,  Shelburne, 
in  spite  of  every  species  of  annoyance  and  humiliation,  would 
have  stood  to  his  post  for  the  sake  of  preventing  the  terrible 
mischief  which  was  sure  to  follow  as  soon  as  the  Bedfords 
were  in  uncontested  possession ;  but  before  November,  1768, 
the  great  orator  was  no  longer  a  minister.  For  weeks  past  he 
had  never  addressed  the  king  except  to  renew  his  passionate 
and  plaintive  appeals  to  be  relieved  from  the  unendurable 
position  of  being  called  the  ruler  of  the  country  when  he  had 
ceased  for  the  time  to  be  master  of  himself ;  and  he  wrote  to 
his  colleagues  only  for  the  purpose  of  adjuring  them  to  assist 
him  in  persuading  his  Majesty  to  accept  the  resignation  of  a 
useless  and  afflicted  servant.  At  length  George  the  Third 
humanely  yielded ;  Chatham  was  permitted  to  send  back  the 
privy  seal ;  Shelburne  anticipated  the  machinations  of  his 
enemies  by  a  voluntary  retirement ;  and  if  Lord  Camden  and 
Lord  Granby  had  been  prudent  enough  to  follow  his  example, 
the  cabinet,  though  it  could  boast  no  other  merit,  would  at 
length  have  been  homogeneous.  Grafton  became  prime-min- 
ister as  a  matter  of  course ;  and  Charles  Fox,  whom  at  that 
age  it  was  not  easy  to  scandalize,  readily  attached  himself  to 
a  leader  whose  bearing  and  address  were  as  full  of  grace  as 
his  conduct  was  devoid  of  it,  and  whose  public  errors,  as  the 
event  showed,  were  due  to  infirmity  of  purpose  rather  than  to 
perverseness  of  disposition.1  In  the  full  belief  that  Provi- 
dence had  cut  him  out  for  a  placeman,  the  young  man  sat 
himself  down  behind  a  government  which  he  was  willing  to 
serve  as  a  partisan,  and  of  which  he  had  every  intention  ere 
long  to  be  a  member. 


what  he  intended  to  be  a  grave  argument  on  a  point  of  law  down  to  his 
most  slipshod  verses  and  his  silliest  letters. 

1  After  a  parliamentary  experience  of  seven  years,  Fox,  who  was  not 
given  to  flattery,  assured  the  Duke  of  Grafton  that  he  regarded  him  as 
"  a  person  with  whom  I  have  always  wished  to  agree,  and  with  whom  I 
should  act  with  more  pleasure  in  any  possible  situation  than  with  any 
one  I  have  been  acquainted  with." 


136  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IV- 

If  he  had  not  been  so  fortunate  as  to  find  a  minister  in 
power  whom  considerations  of  filial  piety  allowed  him  to  sup- 
port, Fox  was  quite  prepared  to  head  a  party  of  his  own,  and, 
if  he  failed  in  that,  to  be  a  party  by  himself.  It  would  be 
useless  to  try  his  proceedings  during  the  five  years  of  his  first 
Parliament  by  the  rules  of  criticism  which  govern  our  judg- 
ment in  the  case  of  mature  statesmen.  His  defects  and  his 
virtues,  his  appalling  scrapes  and  his  transcendent  perform- 
ances, as  with  all  men  of  exceptional  vigor  under  four-and- 
twenty,  were  the  inevitable  outcome  of  his  temperament. 
Those  who  would  call  Fox  conceited  because,  at  an  age  when 
he  should  still  have  been  minding  his  Aristotle,  he  thought 
himself  the  match  for  any  opponent  and  the  man  for  any  of- 
fice, might  apply  the  same  epithet  to  Nelson  when  he  an- 
nounced that,  if  he  lived,  he  would  be  at  the  top  of  the  tree ; 
lto  Byron  when  he  bearded  the  Edinburgh  Review ;  or  to 
Shelley  when  he  introduced  himself  by  letter  to  every  philos- 
opher of  reputation  whom  he  deemed  wrorthy  of  being  con- 
sulted on  the  prospects  of  human  perfectibility.  With  health 
such  as  falls  to  the  lot  of  one  in  ten  thousand,  spirits  which 
sufficed  to  keep  in  good-humor  through  thirty  years  of  oppo- 
sition the  most  unlucky  company  of  politicians  that  ever  ex- 
isted, and  courage  that  did  not  know  the  meaning  of  fear  or 
the  sensation  of  responsibility,  there  was  nobody  whom  Charles 
Fox  shrank  from  facing,  and  nothing  which  he  did  not  feel 
himself  equal  to  accomplish.  He,  if  any  one,  was  a  living  il- 
lustration of  Emerson's  profound  remark,  that  success  is  a  con- 
stitutional trait.1     He  succeeded  because  all  the  world  in  con- 

1  "  We  must  reckon  success  a  constitutional  trait.  If  Eric  is  in  robust 
health,  and  has  slept  well,  and  is  at  the  top  of  his  condition,  and  thirty 
years  old,  at  his  departure  from  Greenland  he  will  steer  west,  and  his 
ships  will  reach  Newfoundland.  But  take  out  Eric,  and  put  in  a  stronger 
and  bolder  man,  and  the  ships  will  sail  six  hundred,  one  thousand,  fif- 
teen hundred  miles  farther,  and  reach  Labrador  and  New  England. 
There  is  no  chance  in  results.  With  adults,  as  with  children,  one  class 
enter  cordially  into  the  game,  and  whirl  with  the  whirling  world ;  the 
others  have  cold  hands,  and  remain  bystanders.  The  first  wealth  is 
health.     Sickness  is  poor-spirited.    It  must  husband  its  resources  to  live. 


/ 


0fiAP.IV.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  137 

cert  could  not  have  kept  him  in  the  background ;  and  be- 
cause, when  once  in  the  front,  he  played  his  part  with  a 
prompt  intrepidity  and  a  commanding  ease  that  were  but  the 
outward  symptoms  of  the  immense  reserves  of  energy  on 
which  it  was  in  his  power  to  draw.  He  went  into  the  House 
of  Commons,  as  into  the  hunting-field,  glowing  with  anticipa- 
tions of  enjoyment,  and  resolved  that  nothing  should  stop 
him,  and  that,  however  often  he  tumbled,  he  would  always 
be  among  the  first.  And  first,  or  among  the  first,  he  always 
was,  alike  in  the  tempestuous  morning  of  his  life  and  in  the 
splendid  calm  of  the  brief  and  premature  evening  which 
closed  his  day  of  unremitting  ill -fortune  and  almost  unre- 
quited labor. 


But  health  answers  its  own  ends,  and  has  to  spare ;  runs  over  and  inun- 
dates the  neighborhoods  and  creeks  of  other  men's  necessities." 


138  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  V- 


CHAPTER  V. 

1768-1769. 

Fox's  Maiden  Speech.— Wilkes.— His  Early  Life.  — The  North  Briton 
and  the  "  Essay  on  Woman." — Persecution  of  Wilkes. — His  Exile. — 
Churchill. — Return  of  Wilkes,  and  his  Election  for  Middlesex.— Dis- 
turbances in  London. — Fatal  Affray  between  the  Troops  and  the  Peo- 
ple.— Determination  of  the  Court  to  crush  Wilkes. — Conflict  between 
the  House  of  Commons  and  the  Middlesex  Electors. — Enthusiasm  in 
the  City  on  Behalf  of  Wilkes.— Dingley.— Riot  at  Brentford.— Weak- 
ness of  the  Civil  Arm.— Colonel  Luttrell. — His  Cause  espoused  by  the 
Foxes. — Great  Debates  in  Parliament. — Rhetorical  Successes  of  Charles 
Fox. — The  King  and  Wilkes. — Burke  on  the  Middlesex  Election. — 
Proceedings  during  the  Recess. — Recovery  of  Lord  Chatham. — His 
Reconciliation  with  the  Grenvilles  and  the  Whigs. 

When  Fox  first  spoke,  and  on  what  subject,  is,  and  will 
ever  remain,  a  doubtful  matter.  His  eldest  brother,  Stephen, 
had  entered  Parliament  at  the  same  time  as  himself,  and  was 
quite  as  eager  to  be  conspicuous,  until  experience  taught  him 
that  public  life  is  an  element  in  which  one  of  a  family  may 
flounder  while  another  swims.1     Various  paragraphs  of  five 

1  The  verdict  of  a  clever  young  man  before  he  is  of  an  age  to  be  cyni- 
cal or  jealous  may  safely  be  taken  about  those  of  his  coevals  with  whom 
he  lives  on  terms  of  intimacy ;  and  two  sentences  from  a  letter  of  Lord 
Carlisle's  are  perhaps  as  much  notice  as  the  second  Lord  Holland  can 
claim  from  a  posterity  which  has  so  much  else  to  read  about.  The  letter 
refers  to  a  tire  which  had  destroyed  Winterslow  House,  near  Salisbury, 
where  Stephen  Fox  lived  after  his  marriage.  "There  is  something," 
wrote  Lord  Carlisle,  "  so  laughable  in  Stephen's  character  and  conduct 
that,  though  he  were  broke  upon  the  wheel,  or  torn  between  four  wild 
horses,  like  Damien,  the  persons  who  live  the  most  with  him  would  never 
be  grave  or  serious  upon  any  calamity  happening  to  him.  If  Lady  Mary 
was  much  alarmed,  or  if  the  birds  were  really  burned  to  death,  I  should 
be  very  sorry.  As  this  is  the  first  misfortune  that  ever  happened  to 
Stephen  which  he  did  not  bring  upon  himself,  all  compassionate  thoughts 
and  intentions  may  be  turned  from  Charles  to  him."     Charles  was  just 


1768-C9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  139 

or  six  lines,  intercalated  between  the  more  generously  report- 
ed speeches  of  established  orators,  are  by  some  authorities 
ascribed  to  Charles,  and  by  some  to  Stephen ;  but  the  inquiry 
may  be  left  to  those  who  hold  that  biography  should  consist 
in  long-flowing  and  discursive  attempts  at  the  solution  of  a 
series  of  third-rate  problems.  It  is  probable  that  Charles  first 
opened  his  lips' in  a  short  discussion  which  arose  on  the  ques- 
tion whether  Sir  Wilfrid  Lawson,  late  High  Sheriff  of  Cumber- 
land, should  be  examined  with  regard  to  an  election  petition 
presented  by  Humphrey  Senhouse,  resident  in  that  county ; 
and  if  such  is  the  fact,  he  did  wisely  in  learning  the  sound  of 
his  own  voice  on  an  occasion  when  nothing  was  expected  from 
him  except  plain  sense  plainly  put.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  topic  of  his  maiden  address,  his  air  and  manner  so  caught 
the  fancy  of  an  artist  who  happened  to  be  among  the  audience 
that  in  the  dearth  of  any  more  suitable  material  (for,  to  guar- 
antee the  secrecy  of  debate,  paper  in  every  shape  or  form  was 
rigorously  excluded  from  the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons), he  tore  off  part  of  his  shirt,  and  furtively  sketched  a 
likeness  of  the  young  declaimer  on  which,  in  after-days,  those 
who  were  fondest  of  him  set  not  a  little  store. 

No  sooner  did  he  feel  himself  firm  in  the  saddle  than,  all 
on  fire  to  win  his  spurs,  he  plunged  straight  into  the  heart  of 
the  most  obstinate  and  protracted  affray  that  has  raged  within 
the  barriers  of  St.  Stephen's.  Parliament  was  then  in  one  of 
the  acute  stages  of  a  controversy  trivial  in  its  origin,  but 
most  memorable  in  its  consequences ;  for  so  strong  were  the 
passions  which  it  aroused,  and  so  vital  the  principles  which 
it  called  in  question,  that  daring  its  progress  our  two  great 
political  parties  were  moulded  into  the  shape  and  consistence 
which  they  have  ever  since  retained.  At  the  time  when 
Wilkes  was  unknown  to  any  but  his  creditors,  men  took  sides 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  at  elections,  on  grounds  that 
were  almost  wTholly  personal ;  the  good  attached  themselves 
to  a  high-minded  leader,  and  the  dishonest  to  an  unscrupulous 

then  at  the  very  bottom  of  an  apparently  inextricable  pecuniary  quag- 
mire. 


140  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

one ;  while  the  names  of  Whig  and  Tory  had  altogether  lost 
their  deeper  meaning,  and  had  ceased  to  be  valued  even  as 
convenient  badges.  But  long  before  the  harassed  tribune, 
after  adventures  which  in  duration  of  time  and  variety  of  in- 
cident can  be  paralleled  only  by  the  wanderings  of  Ulysses, 
was  finally  admitted  to  the  undisputed  honors  of  the  Senate, 
the  old  party  titles  had  once  more  come  to  signify  quite  as 
much  as  in  the  days  of  Somers  and  Harley.  In  the  dark  and 
evil  times  that  closed  the  century,  the  sufferer  by  arbitrary 
power  knew  very  well  in  which  ranks  he  must  look  for  those 
who  were  always  ready  to  vindicate  the  liberty  of  speech,  pen, 
and  person.  There  is  nothing  exaggerated  in  Mr.  Gladstone's 
declaration  that  the  name  of  Wilkes,  whether  we  choose  it  or 
not,  must  be  enrolled  among  the  great  champions  of  English 
freedom. 

That  name,  which  was  seldom  out  of  the  mouth  of  our 
great-grandfathers  for  three  wTeeks  together,  had  been  stained 
and  blotted  from  the  first.  The  son  of  a  prosperous  distiller, 
who  spent  money  as  fast  as  he  made  it  in  the  effort  to  live 
above  his  station,1  John  Wilkes,  before  he  came  of  age,  was 
persuaded  by  his  father  into  a  marriage  which  he  describes 
as  a  sacrifice  to  Plutus  rather  than  to  Yen  us.  His  wife,  a 
rigid  Methodist,  half  again  as  old  as  himself,  he  treated  shame- 
fully. Like  other  famous  men  who  have  been  bad  husbands, 
he  has  found  apologists,  some  of  whom  had  recourse  to  the 
astounding  theory  that  his  domestic  disagreements  arose 
from  a  conscientious  difference  in  religious  views — the  lady 
being  a  Dissenter,  while  the  gentleman,  though  he  not  unfre- 
quently  honored  her  chapel  by  his  attendance,  made  a  point 
of  never  communicating  except  with  the  Church  of  England. 
His  more  prudent  defenders  fell  back  upon  the  old  cant  which 
has  stood  greater  writers  than  Wilkes  in  stead,  that  the  wife 

1  Old  Mr.  Israel  Wilkes  kept  a  sumptuous  table,  and  a  coach  and  six 
in  which  (to  the  detriment  of  the  proverb  that  a  Dissenter's  second  horse 
takes  him  to  the  parish  church)  he  was  frequently  drawn  to  meeting,  al- 
though he  began  life  a  Churchman.  The  explanation  of  the  anomaly  is 
that  he  had  taken  to  wife  the  daughter  of  a  rich  Nonconformist,  who 
brought  him  Hoxton  Square  as  part  of  her  dowry. 


17G8-G9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  EOX.  141 

was  out  of  sympathy  with  the  husband,  and  could  not  rise  to 
the  level  of  his  higher  aspirations1 — a  charge  which,  when 
brought  to  the  proof,  comes  to  very  little  more  than  this,  that 
Mrs.  Wilkes  did  not  care  to  see  her  home  made  notorious  as 
the  centre  of  everything  which  was  most  disreputable  in  Lon- 
don society.  The  revels  of  Meclmenham  Abbey  were  re- 
hearsed almost  nightly  beneath  her  roof  in  Great  George 
Street ;  and  the  poor  lady,  after  a  vain  attempt  to  make  her 
presence  respected,  was  driven  from  her  own  table  in  order  to 
avoid  hearing  her  husband  bandy  ribaldry  and  blasphemy 
with  Lord  Sandwich  and  Sir  Francis  Dashwood.  Wilkes 
speedily  ran  through  her  ready  money  and  his  own,  and  ren- 
dered her  existence  so  intolerable  that  she  consented  to  aban- 
don to  him  everything  that  she  possessed,  including  her  pater- 
nal estate  at  Aylesbury,  on  condition  that  he  should  covenant 
to  let  her  live  in  peace  with  her  mother  on  a  separate  income 
of  two  hundred  pounds  a  year.  Wilkes  cut  a  dash  for  a  while 
on  the  strength  of  his  position  as  a  country  gentleman.  He 
had  already  offered  himself  unsuccessfully  as  a  candidate  at 
Berwick  with  professions  which  anticipated  the  relations  of 
Burke  to  his  Bristol  constituents  ;3  and  in  1757,  at  a  cost  of 
seven  thousand  pounds,  he  bought  himself  in  as  member  for 
Aylesbury  during  the  fag-end  of  George  the  Second's  last  Par- 
liament. He  became  lieutenant-colonel  in  the  Bucks  Militia ; 
the  jovial  brotherhood  of  St.  Francis  noticed  with  pleasure 
that  his  dinners  no  longer  bore  the  marks  of  a  somewhat  too 
notable  housewife's  frugality  ;  and  his  cellar  would  have  been 
the  best  in  the  county  if  the  proximity  of  his  borough  had 


1  Carlyle,  in  his  essay  on  Diderot,  nobly  rebukes  those  regenerators  of 
mankind  who,  while  they  would  banish  tyranny  from  the  globe,  them- 
selves have  inflicted  the  most  cruel  of  all  conceivable  injuries  upon  the 
rights  and  feelings  of  an  individual.  "  A  hard  saying  is  this,  yet  a  true 
one:  Scoundrelism  signifies  injustice,  and  should  be  left  to  scoundrels." 

3  "  I  come  here,"  said  Wilkes, "  uncorrupting,  and  I  promise  you  that  I 
shall  ever  be  uncorrupted.  As  I  will  never  take  a  bribe,  so  I  will  never 
offer  one."  But  the  Berwick  freemen  rejected  this  preacher  of  purity,  al- 
though he  had  purchased  nearly  a  couple  of  hundred  of  their  number  at 
forty  pounds  a  head. 


142  THE  EARLY  PIISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

not  forbidden  his  vintages  to  mature.  But  the  enormous 
expense  of  representing  a  town  near  which  he  resided  sent 
Wilkes  to  the  Jews,  and  he  speedily  had  squandered  every 
penny  which  could  be  raised  on  the  acres  whence  his  social 
consideration  was  derived.  Then,  in  his  despair,  he  turned 
once  more  upon  the  wife  whom  he  had  robbed,  and,  after  a 
vain  endeavor  to  coax  from  her  permission  to  mortgage  her 
annuity,  sued  out  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  order  to  terrify 
her,  by  the  threat  of  exerting  his  conjugal  rights,  into  a  sur- 
render of  the  pittance  which  was  all  that  his  rapacity  had  left 
her.  But  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  having  heard  the  story, 
extended  its  protection  to  the  outraged  woman,  and  bade 
Wilkes  molest  her  at  his  peril  in  a  decree  whose  legal  phra- 
seology only  slightly  veils  the  indignation  which  had  been 
aroused  in  Lord  Mansfield  by  the  heartlessness  and  ingrati- 
tude of  the  husband. 

Such  was  the  man  whom  the  resentment  of  the  king  and 
the  extravagant  injustice  and  violence  of  his  ministers  turned 
into  a  martyr  and  an  idol.  Indeed,  if  Wilkes  had  been  less  of 
a  profligate,  he  might  have  missed  something  of  his  popular- 
ity ;  for  his  ill-repute  as  a  rake  and  a  scoffer  tempted  his  op- 
pressors to  employ  against  him  weapons  the  use  of  which  re- 
volted the  instinct  of  fair  play,  which  is  one  of  the  few  na- 
tional qualities  that  Englishmen  possess  in  as  large  measure  as 
they  take  credit  for  it.     When  the  court,  intent  upon  crushing 

1  Burke  has  put  into  the  best  of  prose  the  sentiments  with  which  nine 
tenths  of  the  decent  and  religious  people  of  the  country  heard  that 
Wilkes  was  to  be  pursued  to  his  destruction  because  he  had  written  a 
loose  poem  and  an  irreverent  parody  for  the  amusement  of  himself  and 
of  those  whom  he  credulously  imagined  to  be  his  friends.  "  I  will  not 
believe  what  no  other  man  living  believes,  that  Mr.  Wilkes  was  punished 
for  the  indecency  of  his  publications  or  the  impiety  of  his  ransacked 
closet.  If  he  had  fallen  in  a  common  slaughter  of  libellers  and  blas- 
phemers, I  could  well  believe  that  nothing  more  was  meant  than  was  pre- 
tended. But  when  I  see  that  for  years  together,  full  as  impious  and  per- 
haps more  dangerous  writings  to  religion  and  virtue  and  order  have  not 
been  punished,  nor  their  authors  discountenanced,  I  must  consider  this  as 
a  shocking  and  shameless  pretence.  I  must  conclude  that  Mr.  Wilkes  is 
the  object  of  persecution  not  on  account  of  what  he  has  done  in  common 


1768-69.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  143 

its  victim,  had  been  baffled  in  a  method  of  attack  which,  if 
arbitrary  and  informal,  was  at  least  bold  and  straightforward, 
it  thoughtlessly  seized  on  what  appeared  to  be  a  golden  op- 
portunity of  wreaking  its  own  grudges  under  the  pretext  of 
avenging  insulted  piety  and  morality.  But  the  good  sense  of 
the  British  people,  shocked  by  the  hypocrisy  of  a  prosecution 
conducted  in  the  interests  of  virtue  in  which  Sandwich  played 
the  conscientious  informer  and  March  the  austere  judge,  kept 
steadily  in  view  the  distinction  between  public  actions  and 
private  vices.  With  the  exception  of  the  "  Essay  on  Woman," 
which  was  never  meant  to  be  published,  Wilkes  had  written 
nothing  that  was  not  sound  in  reason  and  respectful  in  tone. 
Number  forty-five  of  the  JYorth  Briton,  if  it  had  appeared  in 
the  Morning  Chronicle  as  a  leading  article  at  the  time  when 
George  the  Third  dismissed  Pitt  and  sent  for  Addington,  or 
at  the  time  when  William  the  Fourth  dismissed  the  Whigs 
and  sent  for  Peel,  would  have  been  regarded  as  a  very  passa- 
ble effusion,  rather  old-fashioned  in  the  tenderness  with  which 
it  treated  the  susceptibilities  of  the  monarch.1  Grave  states- 
men acknowledged  that  Wilkes  in  his  famous  paper  had  ren- 
dered a  solid  and  permanent  service  to  the  cause  of  constitu- 
tional government  by  the  clear  and  attractive  form  in  which 
he  had  laid  down  the  doctrine  that  ministers  are  responsible 
for  the  contents  of  the  royal  speech.  Every  one  who  had  read 
enough  history  to  know  the  danger  of  a  bad  precedent  in  the 
hands  of  a  masterful  ruler  was  filled  with  alarm  when  the 

with  others  who  are  the  objects  of  reward,  but  of  that  in  which  he  differs 
from  many  of  them :  that  he  is  pursued  for  the  spirited  dispositions 
which  are  blended  with  his  vices;  for  his  unconquerable  firmness;  for 
his  resolute,  indefatigable,  strenuous  resistance  against  oppression." 

1  "  The  personal  character  of  our  present  sovereign  makes  us  easy  and 
happy  that  so  great  a  power  is  lodged  in  such  hands ;  but  the  Favorite 
has  given  too  just  cause  for  the  general  odium.  The  prerogative  of  the 
crown  is  to  exert  the  constitutional  powers  intrusted  to  it  in  a  way  not 
of  blind  favor  or  partiality,  but  of  wisdom  and  judgment.  This  is  the 
spirit  of  our  constitution.  The  people,  too,  have  their  prerogative ;  and 
I  hope  the  fine  words  of  Dryden  will  be  engraven  on  our  hearts — Free- 
dom is  the  English  subject's  prerogative."  Such  was  the  criticism  to 
stifle  and  to  punish  which  George  the  Third  set  his  kingdom  in  a  flame. 


144  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

house  of  a  politician  obnoxious  to  authority  was  rifled,  and  his 
person  seized,  under  a  process  of  flagrant  illegality,  and  when 
the  independence  of  the  legislature  was  undermined  by  the 
shameless  coercion  and  corruption  which  were  put  in  practice 
in  order  to  wring  a  justification  of  that  illegality  from  an  un- 
willing Parliament.  The  common  folk,  who  could  not  appre- 
ciate the  perils  whicli  lurked  beneath  a  general  warrant,  did 
not  like  to  see  a  man  ruined  for  writing  what  nine  people  out 
of  ten  were  thinking.  They  could  understand  how  terrible 
were  the  odds  against  a  private  person  engaged  in  a  combat 
a  oittrance  with  a  powerful  ministry  which,  after  stooping  to 
pilfer  manuscripts  and  suborn  printer's  devils,  did  not  scruple 
to  employ  in  litigation  the  inexhaustible  resources  of  the 
Treasury  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  itself  and  its  instru- 
ments from  the  penalties  of  its  tyrannical  deeds  and  its  das- 
tardly manoeuvres.  They  could  admire  the  dignified  silence 
that  Wilkes  opposed  to  the  clamorous  and  officious  treachery 
of  his  former  boon  companions ;  the  cheerful  and  polite  in- 
trepidity with  which  he  stood  before  the  pistol  of  one  court 
bravo  or  House  of  Commons  bully  after  another;  and  the 
easy,  if  somewhat  impudent,  pleasantry  of  the  demeanor 
which,  however  low  his  heart  might  sink  within  him,  he  con- 
tinued to  maintain  amidst  the  wreck  of  his  crumbling  fort- 
unes.1 


1  The  spirit  and  humor  displayed  in  his  correspondence  with  the  secre- 
taries of  state,  and  the  insolent  stupidity  of  their  joint  answer,  almost 
command  our  sympathy  for  the  contemptuous  satisfaction  with  which, 
three  months  afterwards,  Wilkes  heard  that  Lord  Egremont,  the  heavier 
and  more  respectable  of  the  pair,  "  had  paid  the  debt  to  nature  and  been 
gathered  to  the  dull  of  ancient  days."  One  of  the  two  noblemen  who,  in 
the  case  of  the  "  Essay  on  Woman,"  had  been  literary  accomplices  before 
the  act,  turned  king's  evidence  against  the  author,  and  the  other  was  grat- 
ified with  the  lord-lieutenancy  of  which  Earl  Temple  had  been  deprived 
as  a  punishment  for  refusing  to  abandon  an  old  friend  in  his  trouble. 
The  voluble  fervor  with  which  a  lord  of  the  Admiralty  who  had  been 
intimate  with  Wilkes  in  March  publicly  disowned  him  in  April  was  too 
much  even  for  the  obsequious  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
involved  the  time-server  in  an  altercation  which  very  nearly  ended  in  a 
hostile  meeting. 


17G8-G9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  145 

Until  the  wrongs  of  Lord  Bute  and  his  pupil  had  been  re- 
venged, Wilkes's  life  was  never  worth  a  week's  purchase.  Dr. 
Johnson  spoke  language  more  moderate  than  that  which  was 
current  in  the  highest  circles  when  he  declared  that  if  he 
were  king  he  would  send  half  a  dozen  footmen  and  have  the 
abusive  scoundrel  well  ducked.  It  would  have  been  easy  to 
select  the  half-dozen,  for  there  were  volunteers  in  plenty.  The 
lord  steward  of  the  household  was  the  first  to  force  Wilkes  into 
a  quarrel,  so  conducted  that  the  very  seconds  of  the  aggressor 
confessed  that  all  which  was  brutal  and  foolish  in  the  duel 
was  on  the  side  of  the  peer,  while  the  chivalry  of  the  institu- 
tion was  admirably  sustained  by  the  commoner.  When  the 
poor  fellow  crossed  the  Channel  to  enjoy  a  short  respite  in 
the  company  of  his  daughter,  a  schoolgirl  whom  he  loved  with 
a  delicacy  and  devotion  that  did  much  to  redeem  his  charac- 
ter, he  found  himself  dogged  about  Paris  by  a  bloodthirsty 
Scotch  captain ;  and  after  his  return  to  England  he  was  chal- 
lenged by  a  Scotch  colonial  governor  who,  after  the  manner 
of  his  class,  was  playing  truant  from  his  province  of  West 
Florida.  At  length  a  member  of  Parliament,  a  hanger-on  of 
Bute  and  treasurer  to  the  princess  dowager,  after  diligently 
practising  at  a  mark  on  week-days  and  Sundays  alike,  dared 
him  to  a  solitary  and  unwitnessed  encounter,  ignored  his  un- 
doubted right  to  the  choice  of  weapons,  and  kept  on  firing  till 
Wilkes  was  shot  through  the  body.  As  he  lay  on  the  turf  of 
Hyde  Park,  his  first  concern  was  for  the  safety  of  his  oppo- 
nent, who  had  so  managed  the  affair  that  if  death  had  been 
the  consequence,  the  eloquence  and  skill  of  all  the  ministerial 
lawyers  together  could  not  have  persuaded  a  London  jury  to 
bring  in  any  verdict  short  of  wilful  murder. 

Neither  his  gallantry  nor  his  misfortunes  availed  in  the 
least  to  soften  the  industrious  rancor  of  his  enemies.  He  was 
turned  out  of  the  militia.  He  was  expelled  from  his  seat  in 
the  Commons.  His  writings  were  ordered  to  be  burned  by  the 
common  hangman — a  ceremony  which  very  nearly  terminated 
in  the  hangman  and  the  sheriffs  being  burned  by  the  specta- 
tors. In  an  address  fulsome  enough  to  have  proceeded  from 
the  Parliament  of  the  Kestoration,  the  two  Houses  joined  in 

10 


146  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

praying  his  Majesty  to  indict  the  author  of  the  North  Brit- 
on. The  Peers,  as  if  not  one  of  them  had  Boccaccio  on  an 
accessible  shelf  in  his  library,  were  not  ashamed  to  call  for  a 
prosecution  on  account  of  the  "Essay  on  Woman."  Wilkes, 
as  soon  as  he  could  be  moved,  had  been  carried  to  Paris,  partly 
that  he  might  be  nursed  by  his  daughter,  and  partly  to  avoid 
the  irritating  attentions  of  the  king's  surgeons,  whom  the 
House  of  Commons  sent  almost  daily  to  his  bedside  in  order 
to  watch  for  the  moment  when  he  would  be  sufficiently  ad- 
vanced in  his  convalescence  to  be  persecuted  afresh.  His  suf- 
ferings on  the  journey  were  such  as  it  required  all  his  forti- 
tude to  support;1  and  when  once  across  the  Channel,  he 
thought  it  better  to  remain  in  exile  than  to  run  the  gantlet 
of  two  successive  criminal  informations,  with  all  the  estates  of 
the  realm  for  his  prosecutors.  The  public,  to  use  his  own 
words,  had  no  longer  any  call  upon  him.  The  illegality  of 
imprisoning  a  man's  person  and  seizing  his  private  papers 
under  color  of  a  nameless  warrant,  which  left  it  for  the  discre- 
tion of  the  tipstaff  to  select  his  prey,  had  been  established  by 
Pratt,  then  presiding  in  the  Common  Pleas,  in  a  series  of 
courageous  and  enlightened  judgments;  and  for  Wilkes  to 
stand  his  trial  under  the  old  law  of  libel  as  interpreted  by 
Lord  Mansfield,  would  have  been  to  sacrifice  his  liberty  and, 
feeble  as  he  then  was,  his  life,  without  any  prospect  of  gaining 
a  point  in  the  interest  of  constitutional  freedom.  As  long  as 
the  jury  were  only  summoned  to  decide  on  the  authorship  of 
a  paper,  while  the  judge  claimed  to  pronounce  whether  it  was 
an  innocent  criticism  or  a  seditious  libel,  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench  was  nothing  better  than  a  shambles  where  the  attorney- 
general  pinioned  the  victim  and  the  chief-justice  knocked  him 
down.  Wilkes,  in  a  letter  from  France  of  January,  1764,  de- 
fined the  view  which  he  took  of  his  obligations  as  a  citizen  in 
language  which  does  him  honor.  "  The  two  important  deci- 
sions," he  wrote,  "in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  and  the 

1  "  My  wound,"  he  wrote  from  Dover,  "  has  been  a  good  deal  fretted  by 
the  vile  jolts  through  the  rascally  towns  of  Stroud,  Rochester,  and  Chat- 
ham ;  but  to-day  I  recover  my  spirits.  I  think  Friday  and  yesterday  were 
the  most  unhappy  clays  I  have  known." 


17G8-69.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  147 

Guildhall  have  secured  forever  an  Englishman's  liberty  and 
property.  They  have  grown  out  of  my  firmness  and  the  affair 
of  the  North  Briton ;  but  neither  are  we  tfor  our  posterity 
concerned  whether  John  Wilkes  or  John  a  Nokes  wrote  or 
published  the  North  Briton  or  the  *  Essay  on  Woman.' " 

He  was  found  guilty,  and  on  his  not  appearing  to  receive 
sentence,  he  was  outlawed  for  contumacy.  He  resided  four 
years  on  the  Continent,  much  courted  by  Frenchmen,  whose 
experience  of  lettres  de  cachet  prompted  them  to  make  com- 
mon cause  with  the  agreeable  martyr  of  general  warrants. 
The  English  colony  at  Paris  and  in  the  Italian  cities  where 
he  sojourned  received  him  with  a  courteous  curiosity  which 
the  first  evening  passed  under  the  same  ceiling  with  him  sel- 
dom failed  to  convert  into  an  admiring  intimacy.  The  secre- 
taries of  state  had  carefully  instructed  their  agents  in  foreign 
parts  to  frown  upon  him ;  and  his  natural  tendency  towards 
hot  water  was  kept  in  check  by  the  knowledge  that  if  he  got 
himself  into  a  scrape  it  was  as  much  as  any  envoy's  or  consul's 
place  was  worth  to  stir  a  finger  to  protect  him.  Before,  how- 
ever, he  left  the  capitals  to  which  they  were  accredited,  our 
diplomatists  generally  contrived  to  procure  themselves  the 
treat  of  his  society ;  and  Wilkes  was  not  the  man  to  break  his 
heart  because  he  was  excluded  from  the  doubtful  joys  of  offi- 
cial hospitalities.  As  long  as  David  Hume,  over  Baron  d'Hol- 
bach's  burgundy,  was  willing  to  forget  that  he  was  secretary 
of  the  British  embassy,  Wilkes  was  only  too  glad  that  his  rep- 
utation saved  him  from  a  banquet  at  the  ambassador's  hotel, 
where  "  two  hours  of  mighty  grave  conversation  "  were  pur- 
chased by  six  more  of  faro. 

Wilkes  had  a  real  love  of  letters,  and  had  he  been  less  am- 
bitious he  might  have  left  something  that  people  still  would 
care  to  read ;  but  he  was  not  exempt  from  the  hallucination 
which  seduces  public  men  to  attempt  the  historian  during 
their  fragments  of  leisure,  with  about  as  reasonable  a  chance 
of  success  as  would  attend  a  land-surveyor  who  turned  land- 
scape-painter in  the  intervals  of  his  business.  A  more  hope- 
ful task  than  a  constitutional  history  of  England  in  two  quar- 
to volumes,  to  be  commenced  and  ended  within  two  years  at 


148  THE  EAKLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

a  distance  of  a  thousand  miles  from  the  State-paper  Office  and 
the  British  Museum,  was  imposed  upon  him  by  friendship, 
and  accepted  with  an  alacrity  which  proved  that  he  overrated 
his  own  industry  and  patience.  Churchill,  among  whose  in- 
numerable faults  ingratitude  had  no  place,  had  started  from 
England  in  the  late  autumn  of  1764  to  visit  his  banished  pa- 
tron. He  got  no  farther  than  Boulogne,  where  he  died  of  a 
fever  in  the  arms  of  Wilkes,  whom  he  named  his  literary  ex- 
ecutor, and  who  readily  undertook  the  charge  of  editing  the 
collective  works  of  one  who  had  never  written  more  forcibly 
than  when  he  was  avenging  the  author  of  the  North  Brit- 
on, and  more  sincerely  than  when  he  was  praising  him.1 
Wilkes  inscribed  his  sorrow,  "in  the  close  style  of  the  an- 
cients," upon  a  sepulchral  urn  of  alabaster,  the  appropriate 
•gift  of  Winckelmann,  and  retired  to  a  villa  overlooking  Naples 
with  the  intention  of  not  leaving  it  until  he  had  erected  a 
more  durable  monument  to  Churchill  in  the  shape  of  a  vol- 
ume of  annotations  which  he  fondly  expected  posterity  to 
cherish  as  if  they  had  been  so  many  scholia  on  Horace  from 
the  hands  of  Maecenas  or  Agrippa.  But  when  the  first  grief 
had  passed  away,  he  began  to  be  aware  of  the  unusual  diffi- 
culties which  beset  his  literary  project.  The  letters  in  which 
he  applied  to  correspondents  at  home  for  information  that 
could  throw  light  upon  the  personal  allusions  in  the  "  Duel- 
list" and  the  "Candidate,"  where  Sandwich  was  used  worse 
than  Wharton  had  been  used  in  the  "  Epistle  to  Lord  Cob- 
ham,"2  were  not  likely  to  pass  unscathed  through  a  Post-office 

1  "  Friends  I  have  made  whom  envy  must  commend, 

But  not  one  foe  whom  I  would  wish  a  friend. 
What  if  a  thousand  Butes  and  Hollands  bawl  ? 
One  Wilkes  hath  made  a  large  amends  for  all." 

2  The  most  pointed  lines  in  the  "Duellist"  are,  indeed,  those  which 
compare  Sandwich  to  Wharton,  and  would  fain  suggest  a  rivalry  between 
Churchill  and  Pope. 

"  Nature  designed  him  in  a  rage 
To  be  the  Wharton  of  his  age ; 
But,  having  given  all  the  sin, 
Forgot  to  put  the  virtues  in." 


17C8-G9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  149 

over  which  that  not  too  scrupulous  statesman  ruled  supreme. 
There  was  not  a  man  in  Europe,  so  Wilkes  feelingly  com- 
plained, who  wrote  to  a  friend  under  the  same  disadvantages 
as  himself.  His  more  bulky  manuscripts  and  his  return  proofs 
had  little  chance  of  escaping  the  searchers  of  the  English  Cus- 
tom-house ;  and  though  Voltaire  pressed  him  to  accept  the  ser- 
vices of  his  own  printers,  he  prudently  forbore  to  enter  on  busi- 
ness relations  with  the  patriarch.  As  the  work  took  shape,  his 
unerring  perception  of  the  absurd  and  the  indecorous  could  not 
allow  Wilkes  to  remain  blind  to  the  awkwardness  of  appear- 
ing before  the  critics  of  Tory  magazines  as  the  commentator 
on  poems  of  which  he  himself  was  the  hero.  And  as  months, 
and  still  more  as  years,  went  on,  it  became  evident  even  to  the 
partial  eye  of  friendship  that  the  writer  whom  Cowper,  and 
thousands  besides  Cowper,  once  esteemed  the  poet  of  the  cen- 
tury had  earned  but  an  ephemeral  reputation.  Churchill  was 
inspired  by  both  the  motives  which,  according  to  the  two 
great  Latin  satirists,  are  the  parents  of  satire ;  but  his  indig- 
nation did  not  burn  with  the  pure  flame  of  Juvenal,  and  his 
impecuniosity,  unlike  the  honorable  poverty  of  Horace,  was 
the  child  of  his  vices.  Writing  to  live,  he  did  not  write  so 
that  his  works  should  live  after  him.  Dashing  off  a  poem  a 
month,  in  order  to  catch  a  perennial  stream  of  half-crowns 
from  his  eager  and  insatiable  readers,  he  vehemently  declared 
that  to  blot,  prune,  or  correct  was  like  the  cutting-away  of 
his  own  flesh. 

"Little  of  books,  and  little  known  of  men, 
When  the  mad  fit  comes  on,  I  seize  the  pen ; 
Rough  as  they  run,  the  ready  thoughts  set  down ; 
Rough  as  they  run,  discharge  them  on  the  town." 

With  his  quiver  of  darts  so  unpolished  that  they  could  not 
escape  the  rust,  tipped  with  venom  that  long  ago  had  lost  its 
sting,  Churchill,  "  the  scourge  of  bad  men,  and  hardly  better 
than  the  very  worst,"  easily  and  rapidly  stormed  in  his  life- 
time the  citadel  of  Fame,  but  he  was  not  of  those  whose  names 
are  engraved  upon  its  bulwarks.  Wilkes  had  reckoned  upon 
his  friend's  poetry  as  a  vehicle  for  conveying  the  story  of  his 


150  THE   EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

own  wrongs  to  future  ages.  He  confidently  prophesied  that, 
with  the  powerful  aid  of  Churchill,  he  would  give  signal  proof 
of  the  depth  of  his  "  detestation  for  their  common  enemies." 
But  he  soon  discovered  his  mistake.  After  working  for  a 
while  with  little  heart,  he  ceased  to  work  at  all ;  and  the  very 
meagre  result  of  his  labors  which  has  found  its  way  into  print 
is  in  no  sense  such  as  to  make  us  wish  for  more. 

It  was  not  long  before  he  hit  upon  a  method  of  showing  his 
enemies  that  he  was  alive  very  much  more  efficacious  than  the 
republication  of  satires  which  were  already  moribund.  While, 
down  at  Midhurst,  Lord  Montagu's  grooms  and  gardeners,  in 
their  temporary  capacity  of  landed  proprietors,  were  choosing 
Fox  to  represent  them  in  Parliament,  less  tranquil  scenes  were 
being  enacted  in  the  more  immediate  neighborhood  of  Lon- 
don. Wilkes,  who  pined  for  home,  had  paid  a  secret  visit  to 
England  as  early  as  1766,  and  had  addressed  to  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  a  pathetic  but  far  from  undignified  prayer  for  leave 
to  remain,  tranquil  and  obscure,  in  his  native  land.  His  let- 
ter produced  him  nothing  except  a  verbal  answer  framed  to 
be  evasive;  and  he  retired  once  more,  to  use  his  own  play- 
ful wrords,  from  stern  and  inexorable  Rome  "to  the  gay,  the 
polite  Athenians."  But  he  got  little  comfort  out  of  his  his- 
torical parallels ;  and,  after  digesting  his  misery  and  anger  for 
another  weary  twelvemonth,  he  appealed  from  the  governors 
to  the  governed  in  a  pamphlet  which,  even  when  expurgated 
by  the  caution  of  the  booksellers,  made  public  facts  which  it 
would  have  been  cheap  for  the  king  to  have  surrendered  a 
half-year  of  the  civil  list  to  suppress.  A  story  of  grievous 
outrage,  plainly  and  pointedly  told  as  only  a  cultivated  man 
of  the  world  could  tell  it,  reminded  some  and  informed  oth- 
ers that  there  were  persons  in  high  places  who  did  not  lack 
the  will  to  revive  the  despotic  cruelties  of  the  Star-chamber. 
Widely  and  greedily  read,  the  narrative  which  Wilkes  had 
given  to  the  press  enlisted  in  his  behalf  the  ardor  and  indig- 
nation of  his  fellow-countrymen ;  and  an  opportunity  was  close 
at  hand  for  turning  those  sentiments  to  account.  A  general 
election  was  coming  in  the  midst  of  profound  and  all  but 
universal  discontent,  while  the  discontented  in  vain  looked 


1768-69.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  151 

around  for  a  question  in  support  of  which  they  could  rally, 
and  for  a  public  man  who  dared  to  lead  whither  they  cared  to 
follow.  Wilkism,  as  has  been  well  remarked,  was  a  half-un- 
conscious protest  on  the  part  of  the  nation  against  the  corrup-  .  , 
tion  and  oppression  of  its  oligarchical  rulers,  and  the  misery  1/ 
and  despair  which  their  iniquitous  laws  entailed.1  The  state 
of  the  popular  mind,  and  the  political  circumstances  of  the 
period,  were  much  the  same  as  when,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
next  reign,  the  national  disaffection  and  dissatisfaction  found 
vent  in  that  outburst  of  hatred  which  went  near  to  overwhelm 
the  enemies  of  Qneen  Caroline;  but  in  1768  the  people  had 
far  more  to  say  for  their  choice  of  a  favorite  than  in  1820. 
The  instinct  which  carried  them  to  the  side  of  Wilkes,  as 
Burke  truly  said,  was  justified  by  reason.  Here,  at  all  events, 
was  one  who  had  endured  much  in  their  cause ;  who,  if  he 
had  only  been  thinking  of  what  was  safest  for  himself,  might 
have  made  his  peace  long  ago  at  the  expense  of  the  common 
liberties  of  all  citizens ;  and  who  now  was  returning,  poor  and 
alone,  to  try  conclusions  with  a  government  which  had  already 
expended  ninety  thousand  guineas  of  English  money  on  the 
chivalrous  enterprise  of  overthrowing  the  champion  of  Eng- 
lish rights. 

Wilkes  soon  followed  his  manifesto,  and  showed  himself 
publicly  about  London  in  February,  1768.  His  first  proceed- 
ing was  to  send  his  footman  to  Buckingham  House  with  a 
letter  entreating  his  Majesty  to  let  by-gones  be  by-gones,  and 
his  next  to  present  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  city.  His 
appearance  on  the  hustings  in  the  Guildhall  aroused  an  excite- 
ment that  showed  itself,  after  old  English  fashion,  in  betting 
so  extensive  and  systematic  that  the  wagers  on  his  success 
were  consolidated  by  a  ring  of  enterprising  brokers  into  a  rec- 
ognized stock,  which  was  freely  quoted  on  'Change.  Wilkes, 
however,  had  been  too  late  in  a  field  that  was  already  occupied 
by  four  trusted  and  influential  aldermen ;  and  he  had  attained 
as  yet  only  to  the  first  stage  of  a  popularity  which,  before  six 

1  This  observation  is  made  by  Mr.  John  Morley  in  his  "  Historical  Study 
of  Edmund  Burke" — a  dissertation  worthy  of  its  subject. 


152  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

months  had  gone,  would  have  enabled  him  to  carry  any  open 
constituency  in  the  country  at  a  moment's  notice.  He  was 
defeated  in  the  city;  but  his  defeat  served  as  an  advertise- 
ment; and  nothing  could  exceed  the  enthusiasm  created  by 
his  speech  to  the  livery  on  the  last  day  of  the  contest,  when 
he  announced  that,  since  they  would  not  have  him  as  freemen 
of  London,  he  should  at  once  ask  for  their  confidence  as  free- 
holders of  Middlesex. 

Brentford  was  the  polling-place  for  the  shire ;  and  the  in- 
cumbent of  Brentford  chanced  at  that  time  to  be  Mr.  John 
Home,  a  young  clergyman  who  had  formed  himself  on  Wilkes, 
and  had  endeavored  to  commend  himself  to  his  model  by  pro- 
fessions of  impiety  too  strong  even  for  the  taste  of  one  who 
had  discussed  religion  in  the  cloister  of  Medmenham.1  De- 
termined to  carry  by  storm,  since  he  could  not  conciliate,  the 
favor  of  his  hero,  and  inspired  by  an  uncontrollable  hatred  of 
injustice,  which  in  the  course  of  his  wayward  life  led  him  into 
much  trouble  and  entitled  him  to  some  public  gratitude, 
Home  plunged  over  head  and  ears  into  the  turmoil  of  the 
election;  pledged  all  that  he  was  worth  in  the  world  to  set 
the  best  taps  in  Brentford  running  in  the  cause  of  liberty ; 
and  rode  and  walked  up  and  down  the  county  with  the  praises 
and  sorrows  of  Wilkes  upon  his  very  persuasive  lips.  The 
ministerial  candidates,  who  very  soon  discovered  that  the  tide 
was  against  them,  were  in  hopes  that  the  violence  of  the  mob 
would  give  the  House  of  Commons  an  excuse  to  unseat  their 
opponent;  but  they  had  to  do  with  two  as  consummate  tac- 
ticians as  ever  mounted  a  hustings  or  thumbed  a  poll-book. 
Horne  kept  his  parishioners  well  in  hand,  and  Brentford  itself 


1  A  clever  letter  from  Horne,  dated  the  third  of  January,  1766,  full  of  sin- 
cere but  very  obtrusive  adulation  which  Wilkes  never  really  forgave,  af- 
fords a  striking  instance  of  the  effect  produced  upon  a  man  of  sense  when 
he  sees  his  own  least-becoming  features  enlarged  and  reflected  in  the  mir- 
ror of  flattery.  The  indecent  levity  of  the  passage  which  commences,  but 
unfortunately  does  not  end,  with  the  words  "  You  are  now  entering  into 
a  correspondence  with  a  parson,  and  I  am  greatly  apprehensive  lest  that 
title  should  disgust,"  pleased  Wilkes  as  little  as  Johnson  was  pleased  by 
Boswell's  apology  for  being  born  a  Scotchman. 


17C8-C9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  153 

was  as  quiet  as  if  the  inhabitants  had  been  choosing  an  over- 
seer of  the  poor ;  but  on  the  morning  of  the  election  all  the 
strategical  points  in  the  neighborhood  were  occupied  in  force 
by  the  popular  party.  Before  daylight  six  thousand  weavers 
from  Spitaltields  had  taken  possession  of  Piccadilly  and  the 
Oxford  road,  and  allowed  no  man  to  travel  into  the  country 
without  a  paper  in  his  hat  inscribed  "Number  45.  Wilkes 
and  Liberty  !"  The  coaches  of  Sir  William  Proctor  and  Mr. 
Cooke,  who  ten  days  before  had  as  fair  a  chance  of  being 
made  knights  of  the  shire  by  acclamation  as  any  pair  of  can- 
didates in  the  kingdom,  never  got  farther  west  than  Hyde 
Park  Corner,  and  did  not  return  to  town  on  their  own  wheels ; 
and  it  was  with  difficulty  that  the  occupants  of  the  ill-fated 
vehicles  contrived  to  smuggle  themselves  into  Brentford,  only 
to  find  that  Wilkes  was  polling  five  votes  for  every  three  of 
theirs. 

A  single  day  decided  the  election ;  and  when  night  fell, 
London  had  its  first  experience  of  scenes  with  which  it  soon 
learned  to  be  familiar.  In  the  absence  of  the  constables,  who 
were  all  at  Brentford,  waiting  for  a  riot  which  never  cams, 
the  crowd  insisted  on  a  general  illumination,  and  enforced  its 
decree  by  the  customary  process.1  Even  prompt  obedience 
did  not  save  Lord  Bute's  windows ;  and  others  of  the  Scotch 
nobility  who  could  not  endure  the  notion  of  wasting  candle- 
light on  Wilkes  had  not  a  pane  of  glass  left  along  the  street- 
front  of  their  houses.  The  younger  of  the  two  most  famous 
beauties  that  Mayfair  has  ever  seen — the  lady  who  was  Duch- 
ess-dowager of  Hamilton  and  Duchess-presumptive  of  Argyll, 
and  whom  two  such  marriages  had  made  more  of  a  Scotch- 
woman than  if  she  had  been  born  in  the  Canongate — stood  a 
siege  of  three  hours  rather  than  have  to  tell  her  husband,  on 
his  return  from  Loch  Fyne,  that  she  had  burned  even  half  a 
pint  of  oil  to  the  maligner  of  his  nation.  The  Austrian  am- 
bassador, the  most  precise  and  solemn  of  German  counts,  was 
pulled  out  of  his  carriage  by  a  troop  of  patriots,  who  probably 

1  The  glaziers,  so  Foote  tells  us,  swore  that  a  single  night  of  the  Mid- 
dlesex election  was  worth  to  them  all  our  Indian  victories  put  together. 


154  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

mistook  him  for  a  recent  importation  from  North  Britain,  and 
who  deliberately  proceeded  to  chalk  "  45  "  on  the  sole  of  his 
shoe.  The  English  peers  were  treated  with  more  good-humor 
than  the  Scotch,  but  with  quite  as  little  ceremony.  Those 
who  were  caught  on  their  way  from  a  rout  were  ordered  to 
huzza  for  Wilkes  and  liberty,  and  then  were  graciously  per- 
mitted to  drive  home  with  glasses  broken,  and  the  magic 
number  scratched  all  over  the  panels  of  their  chariots.  One 
great  duke  found  that  it  was  not  enough  to  regale  the  popu- 
lace with  beer,  unless  he  would  swallow  some  of  it  himself  to 
the  health  of  the  new  member  for  Middlesex.  The  lord 
mayor,  who  was  zealous  for  the  court,  thought  it  necessary  to 
muster  the  trainbands;  but  his  drummers  were  marching 
about  at  the  head  of  the  mob,  and  platoons  of  tradesmen 
who  ten  days  back  had  been  cheering  Wilkes  in  the  Guild- 
hall could  not  be  trusted  to  fire  on  an  assemblage  which  was 
mainly  composed  of  their  own  apprentices.  The  foot-guards 
were  drawn  out,  but  did  not  come  into  collision  with  the  peo- 
ple, who  had  carried  their  man,  and  were  not  in  a  temper  for 
martyrdom ;  and  by  breakfast-time  on  the  third  day  the  tu- 
mults died  out  of  themselves,  leaving  the  recollection  as  yet 
of  no  irritating  severity  on  the  one  side,  and  of  nothing  more 
dangerous  than  horse-play  on  the  other. 

The  disturbances  hitherto  had  been  of  the  nature  of  an  elec- 
tion riot — on  a  greater  scale  than  other  election  riots,  as  Lon- 
don was  larger  than  other  cities ;  but  worse  remained  to  come. 
Though  once  more  a  member  of  Parliament,  Wilkes  was  none 
the  less  an  outlaw ;  and,  to  the  disgrace  of  our  system,  the 
tribunal  which  had  outlawed  him,  now  that  it  had  him  in  its 
power,  could  not  make  up  its  mind  what  to  do  with  him. 
Among  a  population  so  contentious  in  its  instincts  that  it  will 
always  take  sides  on  every  question,  from  a  European  war  to 
a  trumped-up  claim  for  an  estate,  the  number  of  those  who 
espouse  the  cause  of  a  litigant  or  a  prisoner  is  determined,  not 
so  much  by  the  strength  of  his  case  as  by  the  length  of  time 
during  which  it  has  been  before  the  public ;  but,  forgetting 
this  marked  trait  in  the  character  of  their  fellow-countrymen, 
Lord  Mansfield  and  his  colleagues  wasted  two  live-long  months, 


1768-69.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  155 

of  which  every  day  gave  Wilkes  thousands  of  partisans,  and 
every  week  brought  with  it  an  outbreak  more  formidable 
than  the  last.  He  surrendered  himself  on  the  twentieth  of 
April ;  but  though  he  had  given  the  Solicitor  of  the  Treasury 
long  notice  of  his  intention,  the  judges  of  the  King's  Bench 
took  till  the  twenty-seventh  before  they  would  even  decide 
to  refuse  him  bail ;  and  meanwhile  the  feeling  in  his  favor 
had  risen  to  such  a  point  that  nothing  but  his  own  personal 
influence,  strenuously  exerted,  secured  a  quiet  court  in  which 
to  commit  him.  After  having  been  drawn  in  triumph  from 
Westminster  to  Bishopsgate,  he  stole  away  from  his  admirers 
in  disguise,  and  got  into  jail  with  almost  as  much  trouble  as 
Grotius  or  Lord  Mthisdale  got  out  of  it.  The  prison  was 
blockaded  all  day  and  every  day  by  a  throng  which  patiently 
waited  for  the  chance  of  his  showing  himself  at  the  window. 
On  the  morning  of  the  meeting  of  Parliament  the  crowd, 
which  had  assembled  in  larger  numbers  than  usual  in  the  ex- 
pectation that  Wilkes  would  be  allowed  to  take  his  seat,  found 
itself  confronted  by  a  detachment  of  the  Guards,  who  had  been 
marched  down  to  keep  order,  and  whom  the  Opposition  writ- 
ers accused  of  having  wilfully  disturbed  it.  After  some  mut- 
ual provocation  the  troops  fired,  and  five  or  six  lives  were 
lost;  and  most  unfortunate  it  was  that  the  first  blood  shed 
in  a  quarrel  which  the  nation  persisted  in  regarding  as  Lord 
Bute's  was  laid  to  the  account  of  some  Scotch  soldiers,  acting 
under  the  orders  of  a  Scotch  ensign.  At  length,  on  the  eighth 
of  June,  Lord  Mansfield  reversed  the  outlawry,  in  a  judgment 
the  stately  eloquence  of  which  only  partially  concealed  a 
framework  of  paltry  technicalities ;  and,  after  another  inter- 
val of  ten  days,  Wilkes  was  brought  up  to  receive  sentence 
on  the  original  charges,  and  condemned  to  pay  a  thousand 
pounds  and  be  imprisoned  for  twenty-two  calendar  months, 
because,  five  years  before,  he  had  written  two  pieces,  of  which 
one  did  him  nothing  but  credit,  and  the  other  he  had  never 
published. 

And  now  George  the  Third  had  his  opportunity.  The  mo- 
ment had  arrived  for  repairing,  and  even  for  turning  to  profit, 
the  mistake  which,  when  he  was  too  young  to  know  better,  he 


156  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

had  committed  at  the  instigation  of  the  worst  ministers  that 
ever  advised  him.  A  single  flourish  of  the  royal  pen  at  the 
bottom  of  a  pardon  would  have  endowed  him  with  a  popu- 
larity such  as  no  monarch  since  William  the  Third  had  de- 
served, and  none  since  Charles  the  Second  had  enjoyed.  By 
promptly  and  chivalrously  remitting  a  sentence  which  shocked 
everybody  except  Treasury  pensioners  and  legal  pedants,  he 
would  at  once  attract  to  himself  that  national  confidence  and 
affection  which  had  long  gone  a-begging  for  an  object,  and 
would  relegate  Wilkes  to  an  obscurity  whence,  but  for  the  in- 
fatuation of  his  enemies,  he  could  never  have  emerged.  The 
member  for  Middlesex  would  have  been  powerless  in  a  House 
of  Commons  which  cared  even  less  than  it  cares  now  for  rep- 
utations acquired  outside  its  own  walls,  and  least  of  all  for 
such  a  reputation  as  his.  He  had  not  the  gift  of  speaking 
well,  and  his  taste  and  judgment  were  too  sound  for  him  to 
find  pleasure  in  speaking  indifferently.  He  would  soon  have 
fallen  back  into  his  natural  station — "  a  silent  senator,  and 
hardly  supporting  the  eloquence  of  a  weekly  newspaper."1 
There  were  those  about  the  court  who  were  persuaded  that  it 
wTas  wiser  to  leave  Wilkes  alone ;  but  already  it  was  no  light 
matter  to  counsel  George  the  Third  against  his  wishes.  It 
was  the  misfortune  of  his  life  (so  Junius  told  him,  meaning 
by  the  phrase  that  it  was  the  fault  of  his  disposition)  that  he 

1  Junius  is  always  excellent  on  the  North  Briton  and  the  Middlesex 
election.  Nothing  can  be  more  just  than  the  passage  in  which  he  ex- 
plains to  the  king  how  his  Majesty  had  been  the  making  of  Wilkes. 
"There  is  hardly  a  period  at  which  the  most  irregular  character  may  not 
be  redeemed.  The  mistakes  of  one  sex  find  a  retreat  in  patriotism ;  those 
of  another  in  devotion.  .  .  .  The  rays  of  the  royal  indignation,  collected 
upon  him,  served  only  to  illuminate,  and  could  not  consume.  Animated 
by  the  favor  of  the  people  on  one  side,  and  heated  by  persecution  on  the 
other,  his  views  and  sentiments  changed  with  his  situation.  Hardly  seri- 
ous at  first,  he  is  now  an  enthusiast.  Is  this  a  contention  worthy  of  a 
king  ?"  "  You  have  degraded,"  he  says  elsewhere  to  the  Duke  of  Graf- 
ton, "  the  royal  dignity  into  a  base  and  dishonorable  competition  with 
Mr.  Wilkes."  "If  George  the  Third,"  wrote  Franklin  in  his  journal, 
"had  had  a  bad  private  character,  and  John  Wilkes  a  good  one,  the  lat- 
ter might  have  turned  the  former  out  of  his  kingdom." 


1768-09.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  157 

never  became  acquainted  with  the  language  of  truth  until  he 
heard  it  in  the  complaints  of  his  people.  False  pride  carried 
the  day ;  and  the  king  would  not  be  satisfied  without  throw- 
ing down  his  glove  to  one  who  might  have  been  something 
more  than  an  antagonist  but  for  vices  which  rendered  even 
his  antagonism  degrading  to  the  crown. 

The  impulse  that  drove  Parliament  into  a  line  of  conduct 
which  was  saved  from  being  criminal  only  by  its  stupidity 
came  direct  from  the  highest  quarter.  As  early  as  the  twen- 
ty-fifth of  April  the  king,  entering  betimes  on  his  vocation  of 
managing  the  manager  of  the  House  of  Commons,  wrote  to 
Lord  North  a  letter,  the  first  sentence  of  which  contained  the 
germ  whence  sprouted  that  rank  overgrowth  of  scandal  and 
sedition  which  was  soon  to  deface  our  history.  "  Though  en- 
tirely confiding  in  your  attachment  to  my  person,  as  well  as 
in  your  hatred  of  every  lawless  proceeding,  yet  I  think  it 
highly  proper  to  apprise  you  that  the  exclusion  of  Mr. Wilkes 
appears  to  be  very  essential,  and  must  be  effected  ;  and  that  I 
make  no  doubt,  when  you  lay  this  affair  with  your  usual  pre- 
cision before  the  meeting  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  House  of 
Commons  this  evening,  it  will  meet  with  the  required  una- 
nimity and  vigor."  What  were  the  lawless  proceedings  to 
which  his  Majesty  referred  he  perhaps  found  it  difficult  to  de- 
fine, for  the  only  contribution  which  he  made  towards  assist- 
ing Lord  North  to  get  up  his  case  was  a  suggestion  that,  by 
going  back  forty  years,  a  precedent  might  be  discovered  in  the 
expulsion  of  a  member  who  had  been  convicted  of  forgery. 
Armed  with  his  meagre  brief,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Excheq- 
uer presented  himself,  first  to  his  brother-ministers,  and  then 
before  one  of  those  general  councils  of  the  party  which,  as  a 
link  in  the  delicate  mechanism  of  parliamentary  government, 
had  not  yet  fallen  into  unmerited  disuse.  Both  in  the  cab- 
inet and  in  the  larger  conclave  the  voice  of  common-sense 
made  itself  heard.  Gran  by,  Hawke,  and  Conway,  the  three 
men  of  the  most  approved  valor  in  the  kingdom,  confessed 
that  they  had  not  the  courage  to  face  the  consequences  of  a 
step  which  would  make  every  second  Englishman  a  rebel  at 
heart,  and  convert  London  into  a  hostile  capital.     They  sue- 


158  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

ceeded  so  far  that  it  was  agreed  to  postpone  action  till  Par- 
liament met  in  the  winter.  As  soon  as  the  November  sitting 
commenced,  Wilkes  himself  was  the  first  to  take  the  field. 
His  friends  presented  a  petition  calling  the  attention  of  the 
Commons  to  the  harsh  and  arbitrary  treatment  which  had 
been  inflicted  upon  one  who  now  belonged  to  their  honorable 
selves,  and  praying  in  respectful  terms  for  inquiry  and  re- 
dress. So  artfully  was  the  document  drawn,  and  so  ably  were 
the  strings  pulled  from  within  the  King's  Bench  Prison,  that, 
by  the  time  the  session  was  a  month  old,  Wilkes  had  set  the 
two  Houses  by  the  ears.  By  a  simple  and  bold  stratagem  he 
had  persuaded  the  Commons  to  request  the  attendance  of  Lord 
Sandwich  and  Lord  March,  in  order  to  give  evidence  about 
the  intrigue  by  which  the  proof-sheets  of  the  "  Essay  on  Wom- 
an" had  come  into  the  hands  of  the  authorities;  and  those 
two  noblemen,  who  knew  Wilkes  quite  well  enough  to  be 
aware  that,  if  he  once  got  them  at  the  bar,  he  would  set  a  mark 
on  them  that  would  outlast  their  lifetime,  in  an  agony  of  ap- 
prehension prevailed  upon  the  Lords  to  reject  the  application. 
The  Commons,  always  forward  to  stand  upon  their  rights, 
persisted  in  their  demand ;  and  the  relations  between  the 
Houses  were  already  at  a  deadlock  when  an  event  occurred 
which  encouraged  the  ministry  to  assume  the  offensive,  and 
deprived  the  world  of  an  entertainment  which  would  have 
surpassed  anything  of  the  sort  that  had  taken  place  since  Cic- 
ero's cross-examination  of  Clodius. 

A  fortnight  before  the  fatal  tumult  of  the  previous  spring, 
Lord  Weymouth,  as  secretary  of  state,  had  written  a  letter  to 
the  magistrates  urging  them  freely  to  employ  their  power  of 
calling  out  the  military.  Just  at  the  moment  when  the  dis- 
pute between  the  Lords  and  Commons  was  at  its  height,  this 
letter  appeared  at  full  length  in  the  St.  James's  Chronicle, 
headed  by  a  few  lines  of  comment,  the  violence  of  which 
would  have  been  inexcusable  if  proceeding  from  any  pen  ex- 
cept that  of  the  man  for  love  of  whom  the  victims  of  the  ca- 
tastrophe had  met  their  death.  Wilkes,  when  taxed  with  the 
authorship  at  the  bar  of  the  Commons,  told  the  Speaker  that 
there  was  no  need  to  call  witnesses ;  that  he  avowed  the  act ; 


17G8-C9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  159 

that  he  gloried  in  it ;  and  that  he  had  other  rods  in  pickle  for 
any  secretary  of  state  who  should  again  indite  "  so  bloody  a 
scroll."  Bravely  indeed  did  he  on  that  occasion  earn  the  line 
compliment  which  was  paid  him  in  the  "  Vision  of  Judgment" 
by  a  poet  who  was  as  little  of  a  time-server  as  himself ; l  but 
the  mob  of  sinecurists  and  boroughmongers,  who  hooted  down 
his  advocates  as  a  preliminary  to  passing  sentence  on  his  cause, 
had  as  much  chivalry  in  them  as  a  pack  of  prairie  wolves 
round  a  wounded  buffalo.  Stifling  discussion  by  clamor,  and 
overriding  all  pleas  of  privilege  and  difficulties  of  procedure 
by  enormous  majorities,  they  beat  back  the  defenders  of  jus- 
tice and  legality  from  point  to  point  until  they  found  them- 
selves face  to  face  with  the  issue  towards  which  their  royal 
employer  so  many  months  before  had  ordered  them  to  direct 
their  efforts.  ,  ^ 

On  Friday,  the  third  of  February,  1796,  Lord  Barrington, 
the  man  through  whose  mouth  the  king  had  thanked  the  sol- 
diery for  shooting  half  a  dozen  of  his  unarmed  subjects  in 
terms  which  would  not  have  been  too  cold  if  addressed  to  the 
survivors  of  the  column  of  Fontenoy,  moved  to  expel  Wilkes 
the  House,  on  the  ground  that  in  the  course  of  the  last 
six  years  he  had  published  five  seditious  and  impious  libels. 
The  debate  was  powerful,  but  the  power  lay  all  on  one  side. 
The  good  speakers  on  the  ministerial  benches  played  their 
parts  ill,  and  the  bad  vilely ;  and  the  impiety  of  Wilkes  was 
far  outdone  by  the  place-holders  and  place-hunters,  who  in 
every  third  sentence  invoked  the  most  awful  of  names  as  a 


u  That  soul  below 
Looks  much  like  George  the  Third,  but  to  my  mind 
A  good  deal  older.     Bless  me !  is  he  blind  ? " 
"  He  is  what  you  behold  him,  and  his  doom 

Depends  upon  his  deeds,"  the  Angel  said. 
"  If  you  have  aught  to  arraign  in  him,  the  tomb 

Gives  license  to  the  humblest  beggar's  head 
To  lift  itself  against  the  loftiest."     "  Some," 

Said  Wilkes, "  don't  wait  to  see  them  laid  in  lead 
For  such  a  liberty ;  and  I,  for  one, 
Have  told  them  what  I  thought  beneath  the  sun." 


1G0  THE   EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

sanction  for  the  incense  which  they  were  burning  to  such 
brazen  images  as  Rigby  and  "Weymouth.  "I  had  rather," 
cried  a  learned  sergeant,  who  looked  to  be  a  learned  judge, 
"  appear  before  this  house  as  an  idolater  of  a  minister  than  a 
ridiculer  of  my  Maker.  I  never  will  believe  that  a  man  will 
render  to  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's  if  he  does  not 
render  to  God  the  things  that  are  God's."  Dr.  Blackstone, 
who  knew  that  the  production  which  he  censured  as  blasphe- 
mous had  been  revised  by  two  of  the  ministers  with  whom  lie 
was  going  to  vote,  was  not  ashamed  to  announce  that,  when 
he  saw  religion  made  a  jest,  he  thought  it  incumbent  upon 
him  to  vindicate  his  Creator.  George  Grenville,  on  the  other 
hand,  packing  into  a  weighty  argument  his  rare  stores  of  con- 
stitutional learning,  and  the  then  unequalled  experience  of  his 
varied  and  industrious  career,  convinced  every  hearer  who  was 
at  once  disinterested  and  intelligent  that  the  course  on  which 
the  government  had  embarked  was  in  direct  violation  of  parlia- 
mentary precedent,  natural  equity,  and  national  expediency. 
Grenville  took  special  care  that  his  speech  (the  best,  by  univer- 
sal consent,  that  he  had  ever  made)  should  stand  on  record 
word  for  wTord  as  it  was  delivered ;  but  it  is  only  from  hasty 
and  disjointed  notes,  scribbled  on  the  knee  of  a  weary  senator, 
that  we  can  piece  together  even  a  fragment  of  the  masterly 
reasoning  with  which  Burke  exposed  the  peril  and  the  iniquity 
of  overwhelming  a  man  who  had  committed  no  single  crime 
worthy  of  punishment  by  gathering  half  a  dozen  peccadilloes, 
utterly  disconnected  in  time,  circumstance,  and  character,  into 
one  sweeping  and  accumulated  indictment.1     Lord  North  an- 


1  "  Accumulative  crimes  are  things  unknown  to  the  courts  below.  In 
those  courts  two  bad  things  will  not  make  one  capital  offence.  This  is 
a  serving  up  like  cooks.  Some  will  eat  of  one  dish,  and  some  of  another, 
so  that  there  will  not  be  a  fragment  left.  Some  will  like  the  strong  solid 
roast  beef  of  the  blasphemous  libel.  One  honorable  member  could  not 
bear  to  see  Christianity  abused,  because  it  was  part  of  the  common-law 
of  England.  This  is  substantial  roast-beef  reasoning.  One  gentleman  said 
he  meant  Mr.  Wilkes's  petition  to  be  the  ground  of  expulsion  ;  another, 
the  message  from  the  House  of  Lords.  '  I  come  into  this  resolution,' 
says  a  fourth, '  because  of  his  censure  of  the  conduct  of  a  great  magistrate.' 


17G8-G9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  161 

swered  an  oration,  which  it  would  have  taken  a  volume  to  re- 
fute, with  a  trite  and  flippant  repartee,  such  as  contents  a 
noisy  majority  in  a  hurry  to  be  in  bed  before  daylight ;  and 
the  expulsion  of  Wilkes  was  carried  by  two  hundred  and  nine- 
teen to  a  hundred  and  thirty-seven — Lord  John  Cavendish, 
like  a  good  Whig,  telling  for  the  noes.  And  so  the  throng  of 
members  poured  homewards  along  Whitehall  at  three  in  the 
morning,  the  wiser  among  the  victors  acknowledging  to  them- 
selves a  suspicion  that  Burke  was  not  far  wrong  when  he  told 
them  that  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  the  candlelight,  and,  as  he 
probably  added,  the  interruptions  from  the  pit,  put  him  in 
mind  of  a  representation  of  a  tragicomedy  performed  by  his 
Majesty's  servants,  by  desire  of  several  persons  of  distinction, 
for  the  benefit  of  Mr.  Wilkes,  and  at  the  expense  of  the  Con- 
stitution. 

The  piece  was  fated  to  be  run  till  both  the  author  and  the 
company  were  heartily  tired  of  it.  Triumphant  in  Parlia- 
ment, the  king  had  forgotten  that  he  still  had  the  country  to 
reckon  with.  "Nothing,"  he  wrote  to  Lord  North,  with  an 
optimism  as  royal  as  his  grammar,  "could  be  more  honorable 
for  government  than  the  conclusion  of  the  debate,  and  prom- 
ises a  very  proper  end  of  this  irksome  affair  this  day."     And 


'  In  times  of  danger,'  says  a  fifth,  '  I  am  afraid  of  doing  anything  that  will 
shake  the  government.'  These  charges  are  all  brought  together  to  form 
an  accumulated  offence  which  may  extend  to  the  expulsion  of  every  other 
member  of  this  House.  The  law,  as  it  is  now  laid  down,  is  that  any 
member  who,  at  any  time,  has  been  guilty  of  writing  a  libel,  will  never 
be  free  from  punishment.  Is  any  man,  when  he  takes  up  his  pen,  certain 
that  the  day  may  not  come  when  he  may  wish  to  be  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment ?  This,  sir,  will  put  a  last  hand  to  the  liberty  of  the  press."  When 
it  came  to  his  turn  to  justify  a  precedent  under  which  every  prime-min- 
ister of  the  present  century  who  has  wrtyten  anything  more  pointed  than 
a  queen's  speech  might  have  been  excluded  from  Parliament,  Lord  North 
had  nothing  to  say  except  that  Burke,  like  the  shepherd-boy  in  the  fable, 
was  always  terrifying  himself  where  there  was  no  danger.  Lord  Temple, 
in  a  letter  to  Chatham,  fully  confirms  Burke's  description  of  the  debate. 
"  Every  man,"  he  says,  "  dwelt  on  the  crime  he  most  detested,  and  disap- 
proved the  punishment  for  the  rest.  The  various  flowers  of  their  elo- 
quence composed  a  most  delightful  nosegay." 

11 


162  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  V. 

yet  signs  were  abroad  which  might  well  have  shaken  his  con- 
fidence. Mr.  Cooke,  the  ministerial  member  for  Middlesex, 
had  only  survived  to  enjoy  his  unpopularity  for  a  few  months. 
The  freeholders  invited  Wilkes  to  select  his  own  colleague. 
He  named  Sergeant  Glynn,  his  trusty  counsel,  who,  through- 
out the  persecution  of  the  press  which  raged  in  the  first  ten 
years  of  George  the  Third  maintained  the  independence  of 
the  bar  as  gallantly  as  did  Erskine  during  the  judicial  Reign 
of  Terror  which  disgraced  the  anti-Jacobin  reaction ;  and  the 
recommendation  secured  the  seat  for  Glynn  as  certainly  as  if 
Middlesex  had  been  a  Cornish  borough  of  which  his  client 
was  lord  of  the  manor.  In  the  following  January  "Wilkes 
himself  was  chosen  alderman  for  the  ward  of  Farringdon 
Without,  and  he  thenceforward  fought  his  battles  beneath 
the  shield  of  the  redoubted  municipality  which  has  always 
been  the  stronghold  of  liberty  while  liberty  was  yet  in  dan- 
ger. As  soon  as  what  had  happened  at  Westminster  on  the 
morning  of  the  fourth  of  February  was  known  east  of  Temple 
Bar,  the  City  gathered  itself  together  for  an  obstinate  duel 
with  the  Commons,  as  resolutely  and  briskly  as  ever  in  the 
seventeenth  century  it  made  ready  to  resist  the  Stuarts.  The 
fiery  cross  at  once  went  round  all  the  haunts  of  business,  and 
that  very  evening  a  great  gathering  of  the  county  voters  was 
collected  in  the  Mile  End  Assembly-rooms.  From  that  time 
onward  it  became  impossible  for  the  bitterest  enemies  of 
Wilkes  even  to  pretend  to  regard  him  as  a  vulgar  and  un- 
friended demagogue.  The  shrewdest,  the  most  respected, 
and  (what  the  court  relished  least)  the  wealthiest  men  that 
ever  drew  a  bill  or  consigned  a  cargo  contended  for  the  honor 
of  proposing  or  seconding  the  tribune  of  the  people.  The 
zeal  of  the  meeting  rose  into  positive  enthusiasm  when  a  City 
magnate  of  the  first  order,  himself  a  member  of  Parliament, 
bidding  farewell  to  the  traditional  politics  of  his  family,  an- 
nounced that  he  would  assert  the  right  of  constituents  to  the 
choice  of  their  representatives  as  long  as  he  had  a  shilling  to 
contribute  or  a  leg  on  which  to  hop  to  Brentford.  There 
was  no  talk  of  a  government  candidate ;  but,  in  order  to  guard 
against  a  surprise,  more  than  two  thousand  respectable  free- 


1768-69.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  163 

holders  flocked  to  the  hustings  at  their  own  charges,  and  stood 
in  pouring  rain  till  their  favorite  was  again  member  for  Mid- 
dlesex, without  having  been  called  upon  to  write  a  line,  to 
speak  a  sentence,  or  to  spend  a  farthing. 

The  election  took  place  on  the  sixteenth  of  February ;  and 
on  the  seventeenth  Lord  Strange,  the  most  presentable  adhe- 
rent of  the  ministry  (for  he  was  a  placeman  who  declined  to 
draw  his  salary),  moved  that  John  Wilkes,  having  been  expel- 
led the  House,  was  incapable  of  serving  in  Parliament.  The 
motion  was  passed  by  two  hundred  and  thirty-five  votes  to 
eighty-nine ;  and  during  the  progress  of  the  debate  a  hint  was 
thrown  out  from  the  Treasury  bench  that  any  gentleman  who 
had  the  courage  to  stand  for  Middlesex,  and  who  could  obtain 
a  single  score  of  supporters,  should  be  declared  by  a  resolution 
of  the  House  of  Commons  to  be  a  duly  elected  knight  of  the 
shire.  The  government  electioneering  agents  accordingly 
searched  the  clubs  for  a  gentleman  who  could  poll  twenty 
freeholders ;  but  the  only  candidate  whom  they  persuaded  to 
come  forward  fulfilled  neither  of  their  conditions.  The  hope 
of  a  seat  which,  if  not  of  roses,  would  at  all  events  be  a  cheap 
one,  proved  sufficiently  potent  to  attract  one  Dingley,  an  ex- 
private  of  the  Guards,  who  had  made  some  money  by  mechan- 
ical inventions  which  in  themselves  would  have  failed  to  se- 
cure him  the  immortality  that  he  owes  to  one  contemptuous 
epithet  from  the  profuse  repertory  of  Junius.1  Wilkes  was 
unanimously  re-elected.  His  opponent  showed  himself  as 
near  the  front  of  the  hustings  as  he  could  penetrate ;  but  he 
got  no  one  to  nominate  him,  and  retired  into  private  life,  if 
we  are  to  believe  Junius,  with  a  broken  heart,  and  certainly 
with  a  broken  head.  As  soon  as  the  Commons  met  on  the 
following  afternoon,  Rigby  moved   to   annul  the   election. 

1  "Even  the  miserable  Dingley,"  says  Junius  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton, 
"could  not  escape  the  misfortune  of  your  Grace's  protection."  The  most 
prominent  among  the  evils  that  befell  Dingley  on  account  of  his  med- 
dling with  politics  was  his  having  been  knocked  down  by  an  attorney, 
which  appears  to  have  impressed  the  public  imagination  as  an  inversion 
of  the  natural  order  of  things.  He  died  shortly  after,  of  Grafton's  friend- 
ship, as  Junius  would  have  it,  but  more  probably  from  natural  causes. 


16i  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

Burke  told  his  brother-members  that  Wilkes  had  grown  great 
by  their  folly,  parodying  for  his  purpose  a  fine  passage  from 
an  old  Eoman  play  which  eighteen  centuries  before  had  been 
quoted  against  Pompey  ;'  and  Mr.  Thomas  Townshend,  whose 
name  one  of  the  happiest  couplets  in  Goldsmith's  "  Retalia- 
tion "  has  in  all  human  probability  linked  with  Burke's  for  at 
least  as  many  centuries  to  come,  reminded  his  hearers  that  a 
heavy  account  would  some  day  be  exacted  from  them  if  they 
continued  to  postpone  all  useful  legislation  for  the  sake  of  a 
frivolous  and  interminable  squabble.  But  the  House  had 
gone  too  far  to  retrace  its  steps ;  and  the  leaders  of  the  Oppo- 
sition allowed  the  election  to  be  declared  null  and  void  with- 
out putting  friend  or  foe  to  the  trouble  of  a  division. 

The  temper  of  the  popular  party  was  just  then  exasperated 
by  an  untoward  circumstance  which  had  attended  the  recent 
election  for  Middlesex,  in  which  Sergeant  Glynn  had  been 
opposed  to  Sir  William  Proctor.  Sir  William  had  hired  a 
gang  of  Irish  chairmen,  who  would  gladly  have  plied  their 
cudgels  gratis  on  either  side  in  any  quarrel ;  and  at  two  in  the 
afternoon,  while  the  polling  was  going  on  in  perfect  tranquil- 
lity, and  when  Glynn  was  already  well  to  the  front,  these  fel- 
lows were  suddenly  turned  loose  upon  the  scene.  Acting  with 
the  vigor  and  cohesion  which  they  had  learned  in  a  hundred 
faction  fights,  they  overset  the  tables,  seized  the  books, 
knocked  down  everybody  who  had  not  Proctor's  colors  in 
his  hat,  frightened  the  sheriffs  into  a  public-house,  and,  to  use 
the  expression  of  a  bystander,  sent  the  whole  county  of  Mid- 
dlesex flying  before  them.  One  poor  fellow,  the  son  of  a  gen- 
tleman in  the  neighborhood,  who  had  been  quietly  watching 
the  voters  as  they  came  and  went,  died  beneath  the  bludgeon 
of  a  notorious  ruffian  whose  most  frequent  alias  was  Mac- 
quirk.  The  murderer  was  brought  to  trial  and  condemned  to 
be  hanged ;  but  his  Majesty  was  advised  to  remit  the  sentence 


1  "  Nostra  stultitia  tu  es  Magnus."  The  original  line,  and  the  use  made 
of  it  by  a  Roman  actor  who  was  playing  to  the  back  benches  over  the 
heads  of  fifteen  rows  of  disgusted  knights  and  senators,  may  be  read  in 
one  of  the  earliest  letters  to  Atticus. 


1768-69.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  165 

on  grounds  which  would  not  have  induced  a  jury  of  South 
African  Boers  to  acquit  a  Dutchman  charged  with  killing  a 
Hottentot.  Contrasting  this  sinister  clemency  with  the  mili- 
tary execution  which  had  lately  been  done  upon  a  parcel  of 
shop-boys  for  throwing  a  few  handfuls  of  mud  and  calling  a 
Scotch  sergeant  Sawney,  the  people  came  to  the  conclusion 
that,  in  the  view  of  their  rulers,  Wilkites  might  be  butchered 
with  impunity.  But  vengeance,  which  spared  the  humble  in- 
strument, overtook  the  statesman  who  by  his  culpable  and  in- 
terested lenity  had  made  the  crime  his  own ;  for  it  was  the 
pardon  of  Macquirk  that  first  drew  down  upon  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  the  enmity  of  that  writer  who  has  handled  his  fame 
after  such  a  fashion  that  it  would  be  well  for  him  if  he  had 
no  fame  at  all.  Junius  spoke  but  the  sentiments  of  all  law- 
loving  and  law-abiding  members  of  the  community  when  he 
asked  the  prime-minister  how  it  happened  that  in  his  hands 
even  the  mercy  of  the  prerogative  was  cruelty  and  oppression 
to  the  subject.1 

1  Those  who  would  enjoy  Junius  at  his  best  should  study  the  earlier 
letters,  before  his  head  was  turned  and  his  style  debased,  and  while  he 
still  confined  himself  to  questions  which  were  within  his  knowledge  and 
his  abilities.  Until  he  undertook  to  outwrite  Burke  and  argue  points  of 
law  with  Mansfield,  his  productions  have  all  the  merit  of  excellent  lead- 
ing-articles thrown  into  a  personal,  and  therefore  a  more  effective,  form. 
It  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  he  should  still  be  read  by  people  who 
have  more  than  enough  to  do  in  keeping  themselves  conversant  with  the 
politics  of  their  own  day ;  but  it  is  easy  to  imagine  the  delight  with 
which  a  common-councilman  who  had  subscribed  his  fifty  pounds  to  the 
Society  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  and  had  run  for  his  life  at  Brentford,  would 
find  such  writing  as  this  on  his  breakfast-table  of  a  morning : 

"  As  long  as  the  trial  of  this  chairman  was  depending,  it  was  natural 
enough  that  government  should  give  him  every  possible  encouragement 
and  support.  The  service  for  which  he  was  hired,  and  the  spirit  with 
which  he  performed  it,  made  common  cause  between  your  Grace  and 
him.  The  minister  who  by  secret  corruption  invades  the  freedom  of  elec- 
tion, and  the  ruffian  who  by  open  violence  destroys  that  freedom,  are  em- 
barked in  the  same  bottom.  They  have  the  same  interests,  and  naturally 
feel  for  each  other.  .  .  .  But  when  this  unhappy  man  had  been  sol- 
emnly tried,  convicted,  and  condemned ;  when  it  appeared  that  he  had 
been  frequently  employed  in  the  same  service,  and  that  no  excuse  for  him 


166  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  V. 

The  antagonism  between  the  people  and  their  governors 
was  the  more  alarming  because  in  case  of  need  the  authorities 
could  only  keep  the  peace  by  methods  which  made  matters 
worse  than  if  the  peace  had  been  left  to  keep  itself.  The  mild 
but  irresistible  weight  of  the  lawT  was  not  then  represented  by 
a  body  of  disciplined  policemen  whom  every  respectable  cit- 
izen, however  angry  politics  might  for  the  moment  have  made 
him,  had  always  been  accustomed  to  regard  as  his  servants  and 
protectors.  The  constables,  untrained  to  work  in  concert,  in- 
dignant at  having  to  serve  outside  their  own  parish,  and  much 
more  afraid  of  a  rioter's  fist  than  of  a  magistrate's  reprimand, 
were  of  no  value  whatever  at  an  emergency ;  and  behind  the 
constables  there  was  nothing  but  the  bullets  and  bayonets  of 
the  soldiery.  An  unpopular  candidate  who  did  not  wish  to 
.commence  his  relations  with  his  constituents  by  using  his  in- 
fluence with  the  War-office  to  get  them  shot  had  nothing  for 
it  but  to  provide  himself  with  a  body-guard  strong  enough  to 
procure  him  a  hearing  at  the  nomination,  and  to  bring  his 
voters  safe  and  sound  into  the  booths. 

In  order  to  carry  out  their  scheme  of  usurping  the  repre- 
sentation of  Middlesex,  the  ministers  had  first  to  look  round 
for  a  champion  not  afraid  of  brickbats,  and  qualified  by  his 
antecedents  to  take  the  leading  part  in  a  struggle  which  was 
fast  assuming  the  character  of  a  private  war.  They  discovered, 
or  thought  that  they  had  discovered,  the  man  they  wanted  in 
Henry  Luttrell,  a  colonel  of  horse,  who  had  the  character  of 
being  somewhat  too  ready  with  his  sword,  and  who,  in  the 

could  be  drawn  either  from  the  innocence  of  his  former  life  or  the  sim- 
plicity of  his  character,  was  it  not  hazarding  too  much  to  interpose  the 
prerogative  between  this  felon  and  the  justice  of  his  country?  You  ought 
to  have  known  that  an  example  of  this  sort  was  never  so  necessary  as  at 
present ;  and  certainly  you  must  have  known  that  the  lot  could  not  have 
fallen  on  a  more  guilty  object.  What  system  of  government  is  this?  You 
are  perpetually  complaining  of  the  riotous  disposition  of  the  lower  class 
of  people ;  yet  when  the  laws  have  given  you  the  means  of  making  an 
example,  in  every  sense  unexceptionable  and  by  far  the  most  likely  to 
overawe  the  multitude,  you  pardon  the  offence,  and  are  not  ashamed  to 
give  the  sanction  of  government  to  the  riots  you  complain  of,  and  even 
to  future  murders." 


17G8-G9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  167 

dark  days  of  Irish  misery  and  disaffection  which  closed  the 
century,  gave  memorable  proof  that  if  he  could  have  had  his 
will  he  would  have  made  very  short  work  of  the  Middlesex 
electors  and  their  privileges.  He  left  his  comfortable  Cornish 
borough  with  its  eleven  voters,  of  whom  ten  were  officers  in 
the  revenue,  on  an  understanding  that  as  soon  as  was  de- 
cent he  should  be  appointed  to  one  of  the  best-paid  posts  on 
the  staff ;  and  the  populace  firmly  believed  that  he  was  to  be 
rewarded  for  his  heroism  by  the  hand  of  a  daughter  of  Lord 
Bute,  to  whose  interests  his  father  had  been  long  and  faith- 
fully attached.  A  political  retainer  of  the  most  hated  among 
Scotchmen,  and  the  member  of  a  family  which  every  Irish 
Catholic  regarded  much  as  a  Christian  in  the  Middle  Ages 
would  regard  a  reputed  descendant  of  Judas,1  he  destroyed  all 
the  chance  that  he  ever  possessed  of  standing  well  in  English 
eyes  by  accepting  the  support  of  Lord  Holland,  whose  house, 
half-way  between  Brentford  and  the  city,  formed  a  conven- 
ient headquarters  for  electioneering.  Supremely  indifferent 
to  his  threefold  unpopularity,  Luttrell  published  an  advertise- 
ment calling  upon  all  who  accounted  themselves  gentlemen 
to  join  him  in  giving  a  lesson  to  the  mob;  but  when  the  day 
came,  the  dozen  or  two  of  cavaliers  who  responded  to  his  ap- 
peal so  little  liked  the  aspect  of  the  streets  that  they  were 
much  relieved  when  their  commander  let  them  and  their 
horses  out  through  a  breach  in  his  garden  wall,  and  conduct- 
ed them  to  Brentford  along  a  network  of  back  lanes,  leaving 
untasted  a  splendid  breakfast  which  awaited  them  at  Holland 
House.  He  might  have  spared  his  precautions  as  well  as  his 
vaunts.  Though  very  different  people  to  deal  with  from  the 
Connaught  potato-farmers  whom  one  day  he  was  to  hand  over 

1  Henry  Luttrell,  grandfather  of  the  candidate  for  Middlesex,  after  dis- 
gracing the  Irish  Catholic  party  by  his  excesses,  deserted  it  when  Limer- 
ick fell,  and  was  richly  rewarded  at  the  expense  of  the  people  whom  he 
had  betrayed,  and  of  a  brother  who  had  scorned  to  join  him  in  his  treach- 
ery. There  never  was  a  more  barefaced  instance  of  that  venal  defection 
which  his  countrymen  have  at  all  times  found  it  harder  to  forgive  than 
the  most  flagrant  acts  of  oppression  prompted  by  consistent  hostility  to 
their  cause. 


168  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OP  [Chap.  V. 

by  droves  to  the  mercies  of  the  press-gang,  or  from  the  pris- 
oner whose  face  he  cut  open  with  a  riding-whip  when  the 
poor  creature  was  already  under  the  shadow  of  the  gallows, 
the  freeholders  of  Middlesex,  so  far  from  being  bloodthirsty, 
had  no  inclination  even  to  be  turbulent.  Certain  that,  unless 
the  Constitution  ceased  to  exist,  they  must  sooner  or  later  get 
their  rights,  they  listened  with  good-humor  while  Stephen 
Fox  expounded  the  claims  of  Luttrell  as  a  fit  and  proper  can- 
didate for  their  suffrages,  and  then  repaired  to  the  poll  and 
gave  Wilkes  a  majority  of  nearly  four  to  one.1 

The  election  was  over  on  Thursday,  the  thirteenth  of  April, 
and  on  Friday  it  was  reversed  by  the  House  of  Commons. 
Charles  Fox,  who  had  been  canvassing  and  haranguing  for 
Luttrell  all  over  the  county  till  his  head  was  full  of  argu- 
ments which  he  was  burning  to  try  upon  Parliament,  got  his 

1  The  frequency  of  riots  at  this  period,  and  the  large  space  allotted  to 
them  by  its  historians,  must  be  explained  by  the  utter  inefficiency  of  the 
machinery  for  preserving  order — a  consideration  which  only  aggravates 
the  fault  of  statesmen  who  so  unjustly  and  gratuitously  provoked  the 
people.  Disturbances  were  more  rife,  and  the  civil  arm  was  weaker,  in 
1768  than  at  any  period  between  the  year  of  Sacheverell  and  the  year  of 
Lord  George  Gordon.  The  sheriffs,  when  giving  evidence  about  Glynn's 
election,  informed  the  House  of  Commons  that  as  soon  as  the  constables 
noticed  some  dangerous-looking  people  about,  they  all  disappeared  into 
the  ale-houses  and  could  not  be  induced  to  emerge  until  the  fighting  was 
over.  A  desperate  and  murderous  battle  with  fire-arms,  arising  out  of  a 
trade  dispute,  was  maintained  in  the  east  end  of  London  from  eight  in 
the  evening  till  five  in  the  morning  without  a  magistrate  daring  to  show 
himself.  Benjamin  Franklin,  the  most  trustworthy  of  observers,  was  then 
living  in  Craven  Street,  and  has  left  some  record  of  what  he  witnessed. 
Sawyers  destroying  saw-mills ;  coal-heavers  pulling  down  the  houses  of 
coal  -  dealers ;  sailors  on  strike  unrigging  all  the  outward-bound  mer- 
chantmen, and  closing  the  port  of  London  till  their  pay  was  raised ;  the 
very  tailors  marching  down  in  their  thousands  to  overawe  Parliament — 
such  was  the  aspect  which  the  British  capital  presented  to  the  decent 
and  demure  Philadelphian.  "  While  I  am  writing,"  he  says,  on  the  four- 
teenth of  May,  "  a  great  mob  of  coal-porters  fills  the  street,  carrying  a 
wretch  of  their  business  upon  poles  to  be  ducked,  for  working  at  the  old 
wages."  In  these  days,  before  such  a  procession  had  got  a  hundred 
yards  down  the  Strand,  the  ringleaders  would  be  already  on  their  way 
to  Bow  Street. 


17G8-69.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  169 

opportunity  in  a  debate  which  was  short,  and  but  for  him 
would  have  been  tame,  inasmuch  as  the  conclusion  was  fore- 
gone, and  the  chief  orators  were  saving  themselves  for  the 
morrow.  A  Saturday  sitting  seemed  a  portentous  novelty  in 
those  idle  and  pleasant  times ;  but  it  was  understood  that  the 
government  had  a  proposal  to  make  of  such  gravity  that,  to 
use  Rigby's  words,  it  was  worth  while  for  the  merchants  once 
in  a  way  to  give  up  their  villas,  and  the  lawyers  their  fees. 
There  was  little  work  done  on  that  Saturday  in  London 
either  by  high  or  low.  The  approaches  to  Westminster  were 
thronged  far  and  near,  and  the  House  was  crammed  for  thir- 
teen consecutive  hours  by  a  crowd  of  eager  speakers  and 
hearers,  transported  beyond  themselves  by  emotions  the  trace 
of  which  can  easily  be  discerned  beneath  the  conventional 
phraseology  of  the  reporter.  Mr.  George  Onslow,  amidst 
a  scene  such  as  his  father  never  witnessed  during  the  three- 
and-thirty  years  of  his  speakership,  or  witnessed  only  when 
Walpole  fell,  rose  from  the  Treasury  bench  to  move  that 
Henry  Lawes  Luttrell  ought  to  have  been  returned  a  knight 
of  the  shire,  to  serve  in  the  present  Parliament  for  the  county 
of  Middlesex.  Alderman  Beckford,  expressing,  as  was  be- 
lieved, the  mind  of  Chatham  in  his  own  headlong  and  fan- 
tastic language,  denounced  what  he  characterized  as  the  rank 
Tory  doctrine  of  the  ministry  with  an  animation  which  called 
down  upon  him  a  furious  rebuke  from  Onslow.  Onslow,  in 
his  turn,  brought  George  Grenville  to  his  feet,  who,  waxing 
eloquent  in  his  old  age,  vindicated  the  law  of  the  land  as 
against  the  will  of  the  House  with  such  vehemence  that, 
when  he  sat  down,  he  spat  blood.  Mr.  Ralph  Payne,  a 
youthful  rhetorician  of  the  study,  who  was  detected  in  the 
act  of  pulling  his  speech  out  of  his  pocket,  received  from  an 
assembly  every  third  member  of  which  was  panting  to  give 
vent  to  the  passions  of  the  hour  in  the  words  of  the  moment 
such  a  handling  that  he  was  glad  to  exchange  his  senatorial 
ambition  for  the  peaceful  dignity  of  a  colonial  governorship, 
and  to  seek  in  Antigua  an  atmosphere  more  endurable  than 
that  of  the  House  of  Commons  during  one  of  its  periodical 
tornadoes.    Another  aspirant  obtained,  but  did  not  merit,  a 


170  THE  EARLY   HISTOKY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

better  fate.  Charles  Fox  won  the  attention  of  all,  and  the 
admiration  of  most,  by  a  fluency  and  a  fire  which  promised 
much  better  things;  but,  in  spite  of  his  sword  and  his  laced 
coat,  he  was  still  a  schoolboy  at  heart,  and  his  speech  owed  its 
immediate  success  to  an  impertinence  that  accorded  only  too 
well  with  the  prejudices  of  the  hot-brained  partisans  whom 
he  was  addressing,  who  wanted  nothing  more  refined  or  accu- 
rate than  the  assurance  that  the  contest  lay  between  all  that 
was  respectable  on  the  one  side,  and  the  lowest  scum  of  Bil- 
lingsgate and  "Wapping  on  the  other.1  Burke,  who  compli- 
mented the  young  aristocrat  of  yesterday  with  the  honor  of 
a  rebuke,  was  hailed  by  one  of  those  volleys  of  affected  mer- 
riment with  which  the  Plouse  of  Commons,  in  its  worst  fits, 
greets  an  unpalatable  statement  that  cannot  be  confuted  from 
a  man  too  eminent  to  be  refused  the  semblance  of  a  hearing. 
'The  insolent  impatience,  however,  which  harassed  the  un- 
daunted and  unwearied  guardian  of  constitutional  freedom 
throughout  the  whole  course  of  a  noble  and  unanswerable 
oration,  could  not  stifle  the  voice  of  one  who  justly  boasted 
that,  when  he  was  pleading  the  cause  of  the  people,  he  feared 
the  laugh  of  no  man.  At  three  in  the  morning  of  Sunday 
Luttrell  was  declared  duly  elected  by  a  hundred  and  ninety- 
seven  votes  to  a  hundred  and  forty-three — a  diminution  in  the 


1  "  Stephen  Fox,"  wrote  Horace  Walpole,  "  indecently  and  indiscreetly 
said, '  Wilkes  had  been  chosen  by  the  scum  of  the  earth ' — an  expression 
after  retorted  on  his  family,  his  grandfather's  birth  being  of  the  lowest 
obscurity.  Charles  Fox,  with  infinite  superiority  of  parts,  was  not  in- 
ferior to  his  brother  in  insolence."  Henry  Cavendish,  who  was  present, 
which  Walpole  was  not,  gives  Charles  the  credit  of  a  piece  of  vitupera- 
tion which  certainly  was  not  worth  the  claiming. 

Stephen  Fox's  anxiety  about  the  state  of  public  affairs  amused  his  ac- 
quaintances, and  the  memory  of  it  continued  to  amuse  them  when  he 
was  no  longer  among  the  living.  Lord  Carlisle,  writing  from  Castle 
Howard  in  1777,  says,  "  We  watch  with  eager  expectation  for  American 
news.  We  are  very  ministerial  on  this  side  of  the  country,  but  yet  we 
want  something  to  keep  up  our  spirits.  I  protest  I  am  like  Stephen 
Fox,  who  used  to  write  in  the  newspapers  and  sign  himself  '  A  stander- 
by  who  has  his  fears.' " 


17G8-69.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  171 

majority,  and  a  still  more  ominous  increase  in  the  minor- 
ity, which  proved  that  Burke  had  not  braved  his  audience, 
or  Grenville  shortened  his  life,  for  nothing ;  and  which  de- 
terred Lord  North  from  offering  any  resistance  to  a  pro- 
posal that  the  electors  of  Middlesex  should  be  allowed  four- 
teen days  within  which  they  might  petition  against  a  decree 
that  reduced  them  to  a  political  level  with  Normandy  peas- 
ants. 

They  petitioned  accordingly ;  and  the  hearing  of  their  case 
was  fixed  for  the  eighth  of  May.  The  House,  as  usual,  com- 
menced public  business  at  two  in  the  afternoon,  in  spite  of 
the  remonstrances  of  an  elderly  member  who  entreated  his 
colleagues,  as  they  valued  their  health,  to  return  to  the  early 
hours  of  their  ancestors,  little  foreseeing  that  two  in  the  af- 
ternoon would  come  to  be  the  time  for  beginning  what,  in 
compliance  with  the  perverted  habits  of  his  descendants,  is 
denominated  a  morning  sitting.  Although  Parliament  was 
on  the  eve  of  breaking  up  for  the  summer,  the  attendance 
was  the  largest  that  had  been  known  throughout  that  stirring 
session.  The  ministers  had  been  careful  to  bring  back  from 
Paris  those  of  their  men  who  had  anticipated  the  recess,  and 
to  summon  others  from  the  North  who  hitherto  had  not 
thought  it  worth  while  to  leave  their  country-houses ;  and  it 
was  an  allusion  which  Burke  made  in  the  course  of  the  even- 
ing to  the  industry  of  the  Treasury  officials  that  first  rendered 
the  term  "  whipping  in  "  classical.  Never,  to  all  appearance, 
had  there  been  a  less  favorable  occasion  for  a  very  young 
man  who  had  no  pretence  to  the  stores  of  special  knowledge 
which  are  presumed  to  lurk  beneath  the  folds  of  the  long 
robe.  The  debate  was  remembered  in  the  Inns  of  Court  as 
the  greatest  field  night  which  the  profession  had  enjoyed  for 
a  generation.  The  discussion  was  opened  by  paid  advocates; 
though  John  Lee,  the  counsel  for  the  petitioners,  a  distin- 
guished lawyer  whom  it  is  on  record  that  the  court  tried  in 
vain  to  buy,  was  quite  the  man  to  have  done  so  congenial  a 
piece  of  work  for  nothing ;  while  Sergeant  Whitaker,  who 
led  on  the  other  side,  would  gladly  have  returned  his  fee  ten 
times  over  to  have  been  out  of  the  case,  when  he  found  that 


172  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

his  activity  against  Wilkes  had  suggested  him  as  a  victim  for 
the  merciless  mimicry  of  Foote.1 

After  the  wigs  and  gowns  had  played  their  part,  and  the 
House  was  left  to  make  up  its  mind  by  the  aid  of  its  own 
lights,  few  members  ventured  to  speak,  and  still  fewer  to 
speak  at  length,  except  those  who  were  learned  by  title,  or 
those  whose  learning  was  so  extensive  and  so  profound  that 
a  seat  on  the  woolsack  would  have  added  little  to  the  author- 
ity with  which  they  discoursed  on  all  that  related  to  the 
Constitution.  Dr.  Blackstone,  who  had  deserted  the  studies 
which  have  given  him  a  fame  worth  twenty  judgeships  for 
the  hot  and  sordid  arena  of  party  strife,  where  the  richer 
prizes  of  his  calling  could  alone  be  won,  delivered  it  as  his 
"firm  and  unbiassed  opinion"  that  Mr.  Wilkes  was  disquali- 
fied by  common-law  from  sitting  in  Parliament.  He  was  si- 
lenced, to  the  delight  of  the  profane,  by  a  layman  who,  on 
such  a  point,  was  every  whit  as  good  a  lawyer  as  himself; 
for  George  Grenville  triumphantly  cited  the  passage  in  the 
first  and  ungarbled  edition  of  the  "  Commentaries"  where  the 
doctor  had  laid  down,  with  the  clearness  which  is  his  distin- 

1  Foote,  who  had  failed  as  an  actor  in  plays  written  by  others,  made  a 
great  and  continuous  success  over  a  period  of  thirty  years,  from  1747  on- 
wards, by  a  series  of  performances  something  between  the  comedies  of 
Colinan  and  the  "  At  Homes  "  of  Mathews.  The  central  attraction  in  each 
of  Foote's  pieces  consisted  in  one  or  more  characters,  which  were  un- 
derstood to  be  modelled  from  living  notabilities,  whose  gait,  dress,  tone, 
and  gesture  were  reproduced  with  Aristophanic  fidelity.  After  carrying 
his  imitations  through  the  whole  gamut  of  respectability  from  Whitefield 
down  to  Dr.  Dodd,  Foote  at  length  bethought  himself  of  bringing  on  the 
stage  a  vulgar  and  dissolute  fine  lady  whom  the  town  should  recognize 
as  the  Duchess  of  Kingston.  That  infamous  virago  had  recourse  to  a 
nameless  and  horrible  retaliation,  against  which  poor  Foote's  holiday 
weapons  were  powerless ;  and  he  died  a  broken  man  in  1777,  leaving  a 
collection  of  dramas,  flimsy,  but  not  worthless,  as  literature,  and  highly 
valuable  as  a  picture-gallery  of  manners.  Whitaker  was  taken  otf  in  the 
"  Lame  Lover"  as  Sergeant  Circuit ;  an  amusing  personage,  but  not  nearly 
so  amusing  as  the  Lame  Lover  himself. 

Fox,  though  he  had  suffered  at  his  hands,  thought  Foote  "  excellent" 
both  as  a  writer  and  an  actor ;  and  in  private  society,  with  every  inten- 
tion to  ignore  his  presence,  he  had,  like  others,  found  him  irresistible. 


1768-C9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  173 

guisliing  merit,  that  every  British  subject,  unless  he  came 
within  certain  definite  categories  of  disqualification  which  did 
not  include  Wilkes,  was  eligible  of  common  right.  Thurlow, 
soon  to  be  solicitor-general,  spoke  temperately  for  the  minis- 
ters ;  and  Sir  Fletcher  Norton,  who  had  been  attorney-gen- 
eral until  he  got  something  better,  forgetting,  or  more  proba- 
bly not  caring,  that  the  whole  political  and  legal  world  knew 
him  as  the  author  of  the  celebrated  apothegm  that  a  judge 
who  did  his  duty  would  regard  a  resolution  of  the  House  of 
Commons  no  more  than  the  bluster  of  so  many  drunken  por- 
ters, had  now  the  face  to  maintain  that  such  a  resolution  pos- 
sessed the  binding  force  of  the  ancient  and  immemorial  tradi- 
tions and  principles  on  which  are  founded  the  obligation  of  a 
contract  and  the  ownership  of  an  estate.  Wedderburn,  who 
had  entered  Parliament  as  one  of  Bute's  henchmen,  and  who 
still  sat  for  a  ministerial  borough,  declared  himself  for  the 
Middlesex  electors  with  the  elegant  melancholy  of  a  patriot 
who  was  sacrificing  everything  to  his  conscience,  and  the 
consummate  art  of  a  schemer  intent  upon  nothing  but  his 
interests.  Those  honorable  and  learned  members  who  went 
the  Northern  circuit,  and  who  knew  Wedderburn' s  profes- 
sional history,  heard  with  surprise  that  one  who  had  thought 
nothing  of  violating,  to  his  own  pecuniary  profit,  the  unwrit- 
ten custom  of  the  bar  was  prepared  to  make  himself  a  martyr 
for  the  sacredness  of  the  common -law;1  but  no  such  un- 
worthy scepticism  troubled  the  Whig  country  gentlemen,  who 
delivered  themselves  up,  without  suspicion  or  reserve,  to  the 
pleasure  of  applauding  the  eloquence  and  extolling  the  in- 
tegrity of  a  jurist  in  whom  they  already  recognized  a  second 
Somers.  Wedderburn  had  outdone  Grenville,  and  Burke  far 
outdid  Wedderburn.  In  a  magnificent  declamation,  woven 
close  with  new  thoughts  and  old  facts,  he  urged  the  House 
to  reflect  upon  the  perils  that  would  ensue  if  members  were 
to  be  expelled  and  nominated  by  the  majority  of  the  day. 

1  Lord  Campbell,  in  chapter  clxiv.  of  his  "  Lives  of  the  Chancellors,"  nar- 
rates, in  a  manner  nothing  short  of  thrilling,  how  Wedderburn,  by  prac- 
tice sharper  than  sharp,  got  hold  of  the  business  of  an  attorney-general 
who  had  left  circuit. 


174  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

Was  that  assembly,  lie  asked,  a  calm  sanctuary  of  justice  into 
which  no  passion  or  corruption  entered  ?  Or  was  it  rather 
the  theatre  and  stage  on  which  the  several  factions  had  fought 
their  battles,  and  where  they  had  in  turn  exercised  on  each 
other  their  detestable  vengeance?  The  ministers,  in  their 
eagerness  to  justify  a  bad  deed  by  bad  examples,  had  dug  up 
the  shields  and  helmets  which  showed  that  the  House  had 
once  been  the  field  of  blood,  and  had  gathered  together  an 
arsenal  of  fatal  precedents  from  the  evil  years  of  the  civil 
wars,  when  the  majority  expelled  the  minority,  and  was  itself 
expelled  in  turn;  when  the  Lower  House  was  reduced  to 
forty-six  members,  and  the  Upper  House  abolished  by  a  curt 
and  hasty  resolution  of  the  Commons;  when  the  king  was 
beheaded,  and  the  standing  army  brought  in  to  overawe  Par- 
liament, and  injustice  was  heaped  upon  injustice,  as  if  man 
would  scale  heaven. 

Wedderburn  and  Burke  were  still  unanswered  when  Charles 
Fox  rose ;  but  when  he  resumed  his  seat,  the  supporters  of  the 
ministers,  and  most  of  their  opponents,  pronounced  that  the 
lawyer  and  the  statesman  had  both  met  their  match.  How 
commanding  must  have  been  the  manner  of  the  young  speaker, 
how  prompt  his  ideas,  and  how  apt  and  forcible  the  language 
in  which  he  clothed  them,  may  be  estimated  by  comparing 
the  effect  of  his  rhetoric  upon  those  who  were  present,  and 
the  fame  of  it  among  those  who  heard  it  at  second-hand,  with 
the  scanty  morsels  of  his  argument  which  have  survived  the 
evening  on  which  it  was  delivered.  The  two  or  three  sen- 
tences which  oblivion,  so  kind  to  him  as  long  as  he  needed 
her  services,  has  permitted  to  stand  in  judgment  against  him 
have  a  flavor  of  boyishness  about  them  for  which  nothing 
could  have  compensated  except  rare  and  premature  excellence 
in  the  outward  accomplishments  of  the  orator.  He  had  still 
enough  of  the  undergraduate  in  him  to  imagine  that  he  was 
speaking  like  a  statesman  when  he  informed  the  House  that 
he  should  adore  Colonel  Luttrell  to  the  last  day  of  his  life  for 
his  noble  action,  and  that  he  would  not  take  the  will  of  the 
people  from  a  few  demagogues,  any  more  than  he  would  take 
the  will  of  God  Almighty  from  a  few  priests.     But  what  he 


1768-69.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  175 

had  to  say  he  said  in  such  a  manner  that  he  came  unscathed 
out  of  a  controversy  on  an  intricate  point  of  law  with  law- 
yers who  were  straining  every  nerve  to  make  or  sustain  a  pro- 
fessional reputation  of  the  very  first  order.  Horace  Walpole, 
who  had  a  grudge  against  Lord  Holland  and  all  that  belonged 
to  him,  bears  reluctant  testimony  to  the  impression  produced 
upon  the  old  stagers  of  the  Commons  by  the  appearance  in 
their  midst  of  one  who  was  born  a  debater  as  Bonaparte  was 
born  a  general.  Mr.  Henry  Cavendish,  the  volunteer  reporter 
of  an  otherwise  almost  unreported  Parliament,  was  betrayed 
into  breaking  the  rule  of  abstinence  from  personal  criticism 
which  is  among  the  canons  of  his  art,  and,  though  himself  a 
violent  partisan  of  Wilkes,  could  not  forbear  from  noticing 
that  "  Mr.  Charles  Fox  spoke  very  well."  If  such  was  the  in- 
voluntary tribute  which  the  young  man's  deserts  exacted  from 
those  who  loved  neither  his  cause  nor  his  family,  it  is  easy  to 
conceive  the  satisfaction  with  which  the  fondest  of  parents 
and  the  most  cynical  of  politicians  learned  that  his  son  had 
already  made  good  a  place  in  the  front  rank  of  parliamentary 
combat  by  the  ability  that  he  had  displayed  against  the  most 
formidable  exponents  of  doctrines  which  in  the  vocabulary  of 
Holland  House  were  designated  as  the  cant  of  patriotism.  In 
a  letter  where  a  father's  pride  shows  not  ungracefully  through 
the  measured  and  business-like  phraseology  of  a  veteran  of  St. 
Stephen's,  Lord  Holland  refers  to  the  discussion  of  the  eighth 
of  May,  "  in  which,"  he  says,  "  I  am  told,  and  I  willingly  be- 
lieve it,  that  Charles  Fox  spoke  extremely  well.  It  was  all 
offhand,  all  argumentative,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Burke  and  Mr. 
Wedderburn,  and  excessively  well  indeed.  I  hear  it  spoke 
of  by  everybody  as  a  most  extraordinary  thing,  and  I  am,  you 
see,  not  a  little  pleased  with  it.  My  son  Ste.  spoke  too,  and 
(as  they  say  he  always  does)  very  short  and  to  the  purpose. 
They  neither  of  them  aim  at  oratory,  make  apologies,  or  speak 
of  themselves,  but  go  directly  to  the  purpose ;  so  I  do  not 
doubt  they  will  continue  speakers.  But  I  am  told  Charles  can 
never  make  a  better  speech  than  he  did  on  Monday." ' 

1  The  speech  which  gave  such  delight  to  Lord  Holland  is  nowhere 


176  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

At  two  in  the  morning  on  Tuesday  Luttrell's  election  was 
confirmed  by  two  hundred  and  twenty-one  votes  to  a  hundred 
and  fifty-two,  and  later  in  the  same  day  the  king  prorogued 
Parliament.  He  concluded  his  speech  by  laying  a  solemn  in- 
junction upon  the  Peers  and  Commoners  to  exert  themselves, 
each  in  their  several  counties,  for  the  maintenance  of  that 
public  peace  which  never  needed  to  have  been  broken  if  he 
had  been  content  to  rule  as  his  grandsire,  and  his  grandsire's 
prudent  and  cool-headed  adviser,  had  ruled  before  him.  "  Qui- 
eta  non  movere"  said  Horace  Walpole, "  was  my  father's  motto, 
and  he  never  found  it  a  silly  one."  It  was  useless  for  the  na- 
tion to  pray  that  it  might  be  godly  and  quietly  governed,  so 
long  as  it  had  ministers  whose  characters  were  such  that  the 
highest  tribute  they  could  pay  to  religion  was  to  keep  outside 
the  church  doors,  except  on  the  day  when  they  took  the  sacra- 
ment in  order  to  qualify  for  their  offices,  and  so  long  as  it  was 
ruled  by  a  sovereign  who  turned  his  realm  upside-down  be- 
cause he  could  not  be  convinced  that  four  years  of  exile  were 
a  sufficient  punishment  for  a  political  lecture  which  George 
the  First  would  have  passed  over  with  indifference,  and  George 
the  Second  would  have  accepted  as  deserved.1     But  the  third 

mentioned  without  some  indication  of  the  surprise  that  was  excited  by 
its  extraordinary  merit.  Sir  Charles  Bunbury,  who  had  been  selected 
from  among  many  rivals  for  the  short-lived  honor  of  being  married  to 
Lady  Sarah  Lennox,  was  at  Paris  when  he  received  his  report  of  what  at 
that  time  he  might  still  be  supposed  to  view  as  a  family  triumph.  "  Mr. 
Charles  Fox,"  writes  his  correspondent,  "  who,  I  suppose,  was  your  school- 
fellow, and  who  is  but  twenty,  made  a  great  figure  in  the  debate  last 
night  upon  the  petition  of  the  Middlesex  freeholders.  He  spoke  with 
great  spirit,  in  very  parliamentary  language,  and  entered  very  deeply  into 
the  question  on  constitutional  principles." 

1  When  Parliament  met  in  the  winter  of  1756,  a  mock  king's  speech 
was  hawked  about  the  streets.  The  ministers  urged  that  the  authors 
should  be  unearthed  and  punished,  but  George  the  Second  expressed  a 
hope  that  the  penalty  would  be  of  the  mildest,  as  he  had  read  both 
speeches,  and,  so  far  as  he  could  understand  them,  thought  the  spurious 
one  the  better  of  the  two.  The  lords  were  foolish  enough  to  press  the 
matter,  and  the  culprit  was  condemned  to  fine  and  imprisonment ;  but 
the  king  waited  for  his  opportunity,  and  took  care  that,  after  a  due  in- 
terval, the  fine  should  be  remitted  and  the  imprisonment  curtailed. 


17G8-G9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  177 

George  would  not  be  satisfied  without  dragging  his  critic  to 
the  light  of  day,  and  forcing  him  in  self-defence  to  assume  the 
attitude  of  a  rival  whom  a  good  half  of  his  subjects  preferred 
to  himself.  He  could  not  stir  abroad  without  meeting  some 
evidence  of  his  unpopularity,  which  he  was  too  much  of  a 
man  to  shrink  from  facing  ;  and  the  partisans  of  his  adversary 
came  to  seek  him  under  his  very  roof,  sometimes  in  the  shape 
of  an  unruly  mob,  and  sometimes  of  grave  and  authoritative 
deputations,  armed  with  a  respectful  but  resolute  protest 
against  a  policy  which  the  petitioners,  as  by  custom  bound, 
attributed  to  his  ministers,  but  which  he  and  they  well  knew 
to  be  his  own.  When  a  counter-deputation  was  organized,  and 
a  hundred  or  so  of  City  merchants,  or  people  who  passed  for 
such,  set  forth  to  St.  James's  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  a 
loyal  address,  the  native  Londoners,  indignant  at  the  notion 
of  Jews  and  Dutchmen  presuming  to  thank  the  king  for  hav- 
ing hindered  Englishmen  from  exercising  their  political  rights, 
shut  the  gates  of  Temple  Bar,  stopped  the  coaches,  and  so  mal- 
treated their  occupants  that  out  of  the  whole  cavalcade  hardly 
a  dozen  reached  their  destination,  after  a  delay  which  scandal- 
ized the  Presence-chamber,  and  in  such  a  pickle  as  disturbed 
it  out  of  its  proprieties.  The  lord  steward  himself  went 
down  into  the  crowd,  and,  when  his  white  staff  was  broken, 
betook  himself  to  his  hands,  which  in  his  case  were  noted 
weapons,  and  infused  such  spirit  into  the  guard  that  fifteen 
of  the  rioters  were  arrested;  but  the  grand -jury  of  Mid- 
dlesex threw  out  the  bills,  and  secured  impunity  for  the 
most  outrageous  insult  that  any  of  our  monarchs  had  en- 
dured since  James  the  Second  was  hustled  by  the  Kentish 
fishermen.1 


1  The  ballad-makers  celebrated  the  events  of  the  day  in  an  Amoebean 
poem  entitled  "  A  Dialogue  at  St.  James's  Gate  between  a  Lord  and  the 
Mob."    The  case  is  very  fairly  put  on  both  sides.     The  Mob  says, 

"Let  elections  be  free,  and  whoever  we  choose, 
His  seat  in  the  House  you  should  never  refuse ; 
And  if  great  men  were  honest,  the  poor  would  be  quiet ; 
So  yourselves  you  may  thank  for  this  bustle  and  riot." 
12 


\    f 


178  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

While  George  the  Third,  if  he  had  listened  to  timid  coun- 
sellors, would  have  remained  a  prisoner  in  his  own  palace, 
Wilkes,  whether  in  jail  or  out  of  it,  inspired  a  loyalty,  and  ex- 
erted a  power  which  any  monarch  might  have  envied.  Junius, 
who,  when  he  was  dealing  with  dukes  and  commanders-in- 
chief,  thought  a  single  courteous  sentence  a  waste  of  ink,  del- 
uged him  with  private  letters  of  advice  as  reverential,  and,  it 
must  be  allowed,  as  tedious,  as  courtly  bishop  ever  penned  for 
the  edification  of  royal  pupil.  He  had  his  flatterers  and  his 
champions ;  his  volunteer  grand-cellarers  and  stewards  of  the 
household ;  his  inspired  scribes  in  every  newspaper,  and  his 
laureates  on  every  curbstone.  His  revenues  for  the  time  be- 
ing, if  not  princely  according  to  English  ideas,  would  have 
been  despised  by  few  indeed  among  the  minor  potentates  who 
then  figured  in  the  Almanack  de  Gotha.  The  Whig  states- 
men had  for  some  years  past  subscribed  among  themselves  to 
provide  him  with  an  income — a  more  judicious  use  of  their 
party  fund  than  if  they  had  spent  the  same  amount  twenty 

The  Peer  replies, 

"You've  insulted  the  Crown,  and  for  these  honest  cits, 
You've  scared  the  poor  gentlemen  out  of  their  wits. 
When  they  mustered  on  'Change  they  were  decent  and  clean, 
But  are  now  so  bedaubed  they're  not  fit  to  be  seen. 
If  such  tumults  as  these  were  in  France  or  in  Spain, 
Five  hundred  by  this  time  had  surely  been  slain  : 
But  the  king  loves  you  all  with  such  ardent  affection 
He'd  lay  down  his  life  for  the  people's  protection." 

Whether  or  not  the  king  loved,  or  could  be  expected  to  love,  his  peo- 
ple at  that  precise  moment,  he  certainly  was  not  afraid  of  them.  His  cool- 
ness then,  and  on  a  subsequent  occasion  when  he  was  hooted  on  his  way 
to  the  House  of  Lords,  roused  the  admiration  even  of  those  who  them- 
selves were  most  indifferent  to  the  hostility  of  the  populace.  "  He  carried 
himself  so,"  wrote  Lord  Holland,  "that  it  was  hard  to  know  whether  he 
was  concerned  or  not.  A  lord  who  is  near  him  told  me  that  after  the 
great  riot  at  St.  James's,  or  rather  in  the  midst  of  it,  you  could  not  find 
out,  either  in  his  countenance  or  his  conversation,  that  everything  was 
not  quiet  as  usual."  Lord  Holland,  who  never  could  conceive  of  people 
acting  either  wisely  or  foolishly  from  any  motive  but  one,  was  absurd 
enough  to  believe  that  the  mob  had  been  hired  by  French  gold. 


1768-69.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  179 

times  over  in  the  purchase  of  rotten  boroughs.  When  these 
secret  supplies  failed  to  keep  pace  with  the  manifold  demands 
of  his  public  position  and  his  somewhat  generous  notions  of 
personal  comfort,  a  number  of  baronets,  aldermen,  and  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Commons  formed  themselves  into  an  as- 
sociation with  a  title  which  recalled  the  most  significant  his- 
torical reminiscences,  and  a  political  programme  ambitious 
enough  to  keep  the  liberalism  of  the  country  busily  employed 
for  fifty  years  to  come.  But  the  Society  for  Supporting  the 
Bill  of  Rights  found  that  it  had  quite  as  much  as  it  could  do 
in  supporting  Wilkes ;  and  the  contributions  which  were  to 
have  been  devoted  to  impeaching  ministers  and  restoring  an- 
nual parliaments  soon  went  in  paying  his  outstanding  debts, 
and  enabling  him  to  drink  claret  and  keep  a  French  valet. 
In  the  course  of  eighteen  months,  through  this  agency  alone, 
at  least  as  many  thousand  pounds  had  been  raised  and  dis- 
bursed in  his  behalf.1    He  was  constantly  receiving  less  splen- 

1  The  Society  for  the  Bill  of  Rights  drained  a  very  wide  area  of  patri- 
otic munificence.  Newcastle-on-Tyne  subscribed  handsomely.  The  As- 
sembly of  South  Carolina,  in  a  very  full  house,  voted  as  much  of  their 
paper  currency  as  would  purchase  bills  of  exchange  for  fifteen  hundred 
pounds  sterling.  A  great  deal  of  money  came  to  Wilkes  direct.  A  no- 
bleman presented  him  with  three  hundred  pounds  as  late  as  1778.  Two 
ladies  of  rank  gave  him  a  hundred  pounds  apiece ;  and  a  party  of  gen- 
tlemen who  used  a  tavern  near  Covent  Garden  requested  him  to  accept 
a  purse  of  twenty  guineas  and  a  hamper  of  their  favorite  liquor. 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  adoration  of  which  Wilkes  long  continued 
to  be  the  object,  or  the  variety  of  the  forms  in  which  it  was  expressed. 
In  July,  1769,  a  clergyman  pulled  the  nose  of  a  Scotch  naval  officer  for 
talking  disparagingly  of  the  member  for  Middlesex,  and  then  ran  him 
through  the  sword-arm  in  Hyde  Park.  The  Chevalier  d'fion  sent  Wilkes 
a  dozen  smoked  Russian  tongues  on  his  birthday,  with  a  wish  that  they 
had  the  eloquence  of  Cicero  and  the  delicacy  of  Voltaire,  in  order  wor- 
thily to  celebrate  the  occasion.  A  gentleman  of  Abergavenny  announced 
his  intention  to  construct  a  miniature  Stonehenge,  dedicated  to  Liberty, 
and  begged  of  him  "  a  few  strong  words"  by  way  of  an  inscription.  An- 
other correspondent  wrote  to  offer  his  friendship  and  fortune ;  proposed 
to  marry  his  daughter,  as  an  excuse  for  giving  Wilkes  himself  ten  or  fif- 
teen thousand  pounds;  and  ended  by  leaving  him  a  handsome  legacy. 
Large  and  frequent  tribute  came  from  an  unknown  person  who  signed 


ISO  THE   EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chaf.  V. 

did,  but  very  material,  testimonials  of  sympathy  from  every 
class  of  his  fellow-countrymen.  Wine,  game,  fruit,  and  poul- 
try reached  him  nearly  every  day,  and  from  most  counties 
south  of  the  Tweed.  Those  who  had  nothing  else  to  give 
placed  their  suffrages  at  his  disposal.  He  nominated  mem- 
bers of  Parliament,  sheriffs  and  recorders  of  London,  and 
mayors  of  county  towns  at  his  pleasure.  The  theatres  were 
his  own  from  the  first.1  Garrick,  who,  when  playing  Hastings 
in  "  Jane  Shore,"  had  pronounced  some  lines  derogatory  to 
the  majesty  of  the  people  with  such  an  emphasis  as  would 
have  been  laid  upon  them  by  a  baron  and  a  courtier  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  found  that  it  was  safer  to  quarrel  with  the 
lord  chamberlain  than  with  the  unofficial  censors  who  watch- 
ed the  stage  in  the  interests  of  Wilkes  and  liberty,  and  was 
glad  to  get  off  with  nothing  more  severe  than  a  friendly  ad- 
monition. Captive  as  he  might  be,  it  was  no  light  matter  to 
trifle  with  a  man  whose  name  or  symbol2  was  chalked  upon 
every  door  and  shutter  between  Paddington  and  Brentford, 
and  was  seldom  out  of  the  sight  of  a  traveller  between  Brent- 

himself  Philo-Wilkes,  and  who  addressed  his  hero  as  aEximious  Sir." 
As  for  poetry,  or  what  its  authors  thought  such,  Wilkes  was  nothing  less 
than  the  Maecenas  of  the  whole  Churchill  school  until  it  had  drunk  it- 
self into  extinction.  With  his  public  fame  and  his  long  credit,  the  only 
form  of  opulence  known  in  that  circle,  he  commanded  the  sincere  and 
devoted  admiration  of  those  ill-starred  and  ill-deserving  bards.  One  ex- 
tract from  poor  Robert  Lloyd  will  more  than  suffice  as  a  specimen  of 
their  encomiums  : 

"  Wilkes,  thy  honored  name, 
Built  on  the  solid  base  of  patriot  fame, 
Shall  in  truth's  page  to  latest  years  descend, 
And  babes  unborn  shall  hail  thee  England's  friend." 

1  During  the  period  of  his  first  persecution,  when  the  king  was  at  Drury 
Lane,  a  piece  was  given  out  for  the  next  night  called  "  All  in  the  Wrong." 
The  galleries  at  once  saw  their  chance,  and  cried,  amidst  general  clap- 
ping of  hands,  "  Let  us  be  all  in  the  right.      Wilkes  and  Liberty  !" 

2  Alexander  Cruden  used  to  vary  the  labor  of  revising  the  third  edi- 
tion of  the  Concordance  by  wiping  out  Number  45,  wherever  he  saw  it, 
with  a  great  sponge  which  he  carried  with  him  on  his  walks — a  task 
which,  as  his  biographer  relates,  defied  even  such  industry  as  his. 


17GS-G0.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  181 

ford  and  Winchester;  and  who  hung  in  effigy  "on  the  sign- 
posts of  half  the  ale-houses  in  the  kingdom,  swinging  (so  he 
heard,  or  pretended  to  have  heard,  a  loyal  old  lady  say  as  he 
walked  behind  her)  everywhere  but  where  he  ought.  When 
he  brought  his  action  against  the  Earl  of  Halifax,  the  surviv- 
or of  the  two  secretaries  of  state  who,  six  years  before,  had 
launched  the  immortal  general  warrant  which  had  been  the 
beginning  of  mischief,  the  jurymen  imagined  that  they  had 
established  their  character  for  patriotism  by  giving  him  dam- 
ages to  the  amount  of  four  thousand  pounds ;  but  they  had 
failed  to  make  allowance  for  the  exacting  affection  of  the  pop-, 
ulace,  who  thought  their  champion  moderate  in  estimating 
his  wrongs  at  five  times  that  paltry  sum ;  and  when  the  ver- 
dict was  known,  the  gentlemen  who  were  responsible  for  it 
had  to  be  smuggled  out  of  court  along  a  back  passage,  and  to 
fly,  if  not  for  their  lives,  at  any  rate  for  their  periwigs.  The 
most  eminent  statesmen,  the  most  persuasive  orators,  were 
eager  to  conjure  with  the  name  of  Wilkes,  and  the  potency 
of  the  spell  seldom  fell  short  of  their  expectations ;  but  when 
the  gale  was  raised,  and  they  desired  to  turn  it  to  their  own 
account,  they  discovered  that  the  allegiance  of  the  elemental 
forces  was  due  to  the  talisman,  and  not  to  themselves.  The 
Whigs,  as  Kigby  justly  observed,  endeavored  to  separate  the 
cause  from  the  man,  without  perceiving  that  he  alone  had  all 
the  popularity  which  they  were  struggling  to  obtain.  "  If," 
said  Horace  Walpole,  "the  Parliament  is  dissolved,  Lord  Chat- 
ham and  Lord  Rockingham  may  separately  flatter  themselves, 
but  the  next  Parliament  will  be  Wilkes's."  The  roar  of  ap- 
plause, which  deafened  Walpole  and  Rigby,  penetrated  even 
to  the  ears  of  a  recluse  in  whose  solitude  the  tumult  of  poli- 
tics sounded  faint  and  indistinct  like  the  murmur  of  a  distant 
cit}T.  "  Whether  the  nation  is  worshipping  Mr.Wilkes  or  any 
other  idol  is  of  little  moment  to  one  who  hopes,  and  believes, 
that  he  shall  shortly  stand  in  the  presence  of  the  great  and 
blessed  God."  So  wrote  poor  Cowper  in  1768,  while  he  still 
ventured  to  connect  eternity  with  hope. 

History,  which  is  very  civil  to  the  reformers  who  swore  by 
Brougham  and  the  free-traders  who  swore  by  Cobden,  has 


182  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

seldom  any  but  hard  or  slighting  words  for  the  devotion  and 
fidelity  of  the  Wilkites.  But  strong  emotions,  which  prevail 
among  all  classes,  and  outlast  many  years,  are  generally  of  a 
nature  which  may  be  analyzed  without  bringing  discredit  on 
the  heads  or  the  hearts  of  those  who  entertain  them.  The  mass 
of  the  community,  which  had  little  cause  to  bless  or  trust  the 
House  of  Commons,  was  firmly  persuaded  that  no  one  could 
be  excluded  from  Parliament  for  any  other  reason  than  be- 
cause he  was  too  good  to  belong  to  it.  George  Grenville  truly 
prophesied  that  whenever  a  calamity  befell  the  State,  the  mul- 
titude would  account  for  it  by  a  theory  which  satisfied  all  the 
requirements  of  popular  logic.  "  Ay,"  they  would  say,  "  if 
Master  Wilkes  had  been  there,  he  would  have  prevented  it. 
They  knew  that  right  well,  and  therefore  they  would  not 
.suffer  him  to  come  among  them."  *  The  sagacious  instinct 
which  expressed  itself  after  this  homely  fashion  on  club-night 
in  the  tavern,  and  during  the  meal-hour  at  the  factory,  was 
interpreted  into  the  language  of  political  philosophy  in  a  trea- 
tise which  young  Englishmen  destined  for  a  public  career 
would  do  well  to  study  with  something  of  the  attention 
which  they  now  expend  on  Aristotle's  speculations  as  to 
whether  the  citizens  of  a  well-ordered  State  should  all  dine 
at  a  common  table.  Burke's  great  pamphlet  on  the  "Discon- 
tents" showed  with  marvellous  clearness,  and,  considering 
who  was  its  author,  with  still  more  remarkable  brevity,  that 
the  patriots  of  1769,  when  they  protected  Wilkes  in  his  rights, 
were  in  truth  defending  the  commonwealth  against  an  attack 
upon  its  liberties  more  covert  and  less  direct,  but  quite  as  de- 
termined, as  that  which  was  planned  by  Strafford  and  repelled 
by  the  Long  Parliament.  The  question  of  old  had  been 
whether  the  king  was  to  tax  and  govern  in  his  own  name ; 
but  that  issue  had  been  decided  on  Marston  Moor.  There 
now  had  arisen  the  equally  momentous  question  whether  he 
was  to  tax  and  govern  in  the  name  of  the  Parliament.  With 
ministers  whom  the  Crown  appointed,  an  Upper  House  which 
it  might  increase  at  will,  and  a  Lower  House  full  of  men  who 

1  Cavendish's  Debates;  February  3, 1769. 


17C8-69.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  183 

had  bought  their  seats  and  sold  themselves,  there  was  no  check 
upon  the  excesses  and  follies  of  arbitrary  authority  except  the 
presence  here  and  there  on  the  benches  of  members  endowed 
with  a  "  spirit  of  independence  carried  to  some  degree  of  en- 
thusiasm, and  an  inquisitive  character  to  discover  and  a  bold 
one  to  display  every  corruption  and  every  error  of  govern- 
ment." Those  were  the  qualities  (so  Burke  reasoned)  which 
recommended  a  candidate  to  the  few  constituencies  that  still 
could  be  called  free  and  open ;  but  they  were  distasteful  to 
the  professors  of  this  doctrine  of  personal  government  that 
had  been  resuscitated  after  the  lapse  of  a  century  and  a  quar- 
ter. These  gentlemen,  well  aware  that  the  deterrent  force  of 
an  example  depended  on  other  circumstances  than  on  the 
number  of  victims,  and  that  the  arrest  of  five  members,  if 
successfully  conducted,  would  formerly  have  stifled  liberty  as 
effectually  as  the  execution  of  fifty,  had  now  resolved  by  the 
expulsion  of  one  to  establish  in  the  minds  of  all  the  fatal  con- 
viction that  "  the  favor  of  the  people  was  not  so  sure  a  road 
as  the  favor  of  the  court,  even  to  popular  honors  and  popular 
trusts."  From  the  Eestoration  onwards,  and  still  more  decid- 
edly since  the  Revolution,  the  good  opinion  of  the  people  had 
been  the  avenue  which  led  to  the  greatest  honors  and  emolu- 
ments in  the  gift  of  the  Crown.  Henceforward  the  principle 
was  to  be  reversed,  and  the  partiality  of  the  Court  was  to  be- 
come the  only  sure  way  of  obtaining  and  holding  even  those 
honors  which  ought  to  be  in  the  disposal  of  the  people. 

To  unmask  this  conspiracy  against  the  nation,  and  to  with- 
stand it  to  the  death,  was  a  duty  which  the  Whig  party  could 
not  have  shirked  without  making  Vane  and  Russell  turn  in 
their  graves.  Lord  Rockingham  and  his  followers  were  a 
mere  handful ;  but  when  they  faced  the  Court,  they  knew  that 
they  had  the  country  behind  them.  Burke,  a  master  in  the 
art  of  putting  into  the  most  attractive  form  those  incentives  to 
political  action  which  no  true-bred  Whig  statesman  ever  could 
or  ever  will  resist,  explained  to  his  leader,  in  a  series  of  skilful 
letters,  that  the  Middlesex  election  united  the  two  conditions 
essential  to  a  good  party  question,  of  being  at  once  popular 
and  practical.     "  The  people,"  he  said,  "  feel  upon  this  and 


18 4:  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

upon  no  other  ground  of  our  opposition.  "We  never  have  had, 
and  we  never  shall  have,  a  matter  in  every  way  so  calculated 
to  engage  them;  and  if  the  spirit  excited  upon  this  occasion 
were  suffered  to  flatten  and  evaporate,  you  would  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  collect  it  again  when  you  might  have  the  greatest  oc- 
casion for  it."  And  then  he  clenched  his  argument  with  an 
appeal  to  a  maxim  of  policy  that  has  earned  the  Whigs  all  the 
success  and  most  of  the  abuse  which  between  his  day  and  ours 
have  fallen  to  their  share.  "It  was  the  characteristic,"  he 
wrote,  "  of  your  lordship  and  your  friends  never  to  take  up 
anything  as  a  grievance  when  you  did  not  mean  in  good  ear- 
nest to  have  it  reformed." 

They  were  in  earnest  now,  and  fully  resolved  not  to  relax 
their  efforts  until  the  breach  in  the  Constitution  had  been  se- 
curely and  durably  repaired.  The  day  after  Parliament  was 
iip,  seventy-two  members  of  the  minority  dined  together  at 
the  Thatched  House  Tavern,  and  toasted  the  "  Rights  of  Elec- 
tors," the  "  Freedom  of  Debate,"  and  the  "  First  Edition  of 
Dr.  Blackstone's  '  Commentaries.'  "  The  hero  of  the  evening 
wTas  Wedderburn,  who,  as  usage  demanded,  had  placed  his  seat 
once  more  at  the  disposal  of  the  patron  against  whose  views 
he  had  voted  and  spoken.  He>  was  rewarded  by  hearing  the 
health  of  the  Steward  of  the  Chiltern  Hundreds  drunk  with 
three  times  three;  and  the  cheering  swelled  into  a  volume 
which  exceeded  the  power  of  convivial  arithmetic  to  compute 
when,  kissing  the  bottle,  and  laughing  behind  it  at  the  dupes 
who  did  not  know  an  adventurer  when  they  saw  one,  he  swore 
that  he  did  from  his  soul  denounce,  detest,  and  abjure  that 
damnable  doctrine  and  position  that  a  resolution  of  the  House 
of  Commons  can  make,  alter,  suspend,  abrogate,  or  annihilate 
the  law  of  the  land.1  Fortified  by  the  exchange  of  patriotic 
sentiments,  and  primed  with  one -and -twenty  bumpers,  the 
Whig  squires  hastened  down  to  their  counties  and  fell  to  the 


1  Lord  Clive,  the  leviathan  of  boroughmongers,  who  as  an  admirer  and 
adherent  of  George  Grenville  was  temporarily  connected  with  the  Oppo- 
sition, placed  another  seat  at  the  disposal  of  Wedderburn  on  the  morrow 
of  the  day  that  he  resigned  his  old  one. 


17G8-G9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  185 

work  of  stirring  public  opinion  and  concentrating  it  upon  the 
point  at  issue  by  such  primitive  and  clumsy  methods  as  sug- 
gested themselves  before  the  Catholic  Association  and  the 
Anti-Corn-law  League  had  brought  agitation  to  the  level  of 
an  exact  science.  The  word  was  passed  to  petition  the  throne 
for  redress  of  grievances.  Burke,  who  directed  the  movement, 
informed  his  coadjutors,  as  the  fruit  of  long  observation,  that 
the  people  about  the  Court  cared  very  little  whether  the  occu- 
pants of  the  Treasury  bench  had  a  hard  or  an  easy  time  of  it, 
so  long  as  no  manifestations  of  popular  dissatisfaction  obtrud- 
ed themselves  upon  the  royal  presence.  A  string  of  sulky 
common-councilmen  or  justices  of  the  peace,  filing  through 
the  rooms  at  St.  James's  with  an  address  about  their  invaded 
birthrights  and  the  valor  of  their  forefathers,  and  expecting 
to  be  received  as  graciously  as  if  they  were  there  to  congratu- 
late the  king  upon  the  birth  of  a  princess,  would  do  more  than 
a  score  of  parliamentary  debates  to  arouse  in  George  the 
Third  a  suspicion  that  his  scheme  for  governing  the  country 
by  weak,  divided,  and  dependent  administrations  might  end 
by  being  as  disagreeable  to  himself  as  it  was  distressing  to  his 
subjects.1 

Middlesex  led  the  way,  helping  herself  in  order  that  she 
might  be  helped  by  others.  Wiltshire  and  Worcestershire  and 
Surrey  were  not  slow  to  follow  her  example.  The  Kentish 
petition  bore  the  signatures  of  two  thousand  seven  hundred 
freeholders ;  though  three  skins  of  parchment  which  had  been 
going  the  round  of  the  hop-districts  were  not  forthcoming. 
Wedderburn  drafted  the  Yorkshire  address,  and  made  a  prog- 


1  "  The  Middlesex  petition,"  wrote  Rigby,  on  the  twenty-fourth  of  May, 
1769,  "was  brought  to  court  to-day.  The  man  who  delivered  it  to  the 
king,  his  name  is  Askew.  His  companions  were  Sergeant  Glynn ;  an  old 
parson,  Dr.  Wilson,  prebend  of  Westminster;  Messrs.  Townshend,  Saw- 
bridge,  Bellas,  and  one  other  ill-looking  fellow,  whose  name  I  could  not 
learn.  His  Majesty  received  it  with  proper  contempt,  not  speaking  to 
any  one  of  them ;  but  an  impropriety  seems  to  have  been  committed  by 
their  being  permitted  to  kiss  the  king's  hand,  all  of  them  except  the  old 
parson  and  Sawbridge."  The  reasons  for  appealing  direct  to  the  king 
are  very  well  put  in  Burke's  letter  to  Lord  Rockingham  of  July  2. 


186  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

ress  through  the  three  ridings,  declaiming  against  placemen 
and  turncoats  with  a  success  which  is  said  to  have  inspired 
Wilkes  with  a  short-sighted  and  most  superfluous  jealousy. 
Burke  undertook  the  county  which  he  had  honored  by  choos- 
ing for  his  home,  and  arranged  that  the  voice  of  Bucking- 
hamshire should  declare  itself  by  the  good  old-fashioned  proc- 
ess which  had  been  familiar  to  Hampden.  The  grand-jury 
voted  a  county  meeting,  which  was  advertised  by  handbills 
circulated  at  the  races.  When  the  day  came,  a  local  member 
of  Parliament,  who  had  been  active  for  Wilkes  at  Westmin- 
ster, gave  spirit  to  the  affair  by  riding  into  Aylesbury  at  the 
head  of  his  tenantry.  The  assembly  was  moderated  by  the 
judgment  and  animated  by  the  eloquence  of  the  greatest 
writer  and  thinker  who  has  ever  given  himself  wholly  to 
politics,  and  who  on  that  occasion  made  it  his  pride  to  forget 
'that  he  was  anything  more  than  a  farmer  of  Buckinghamshire. 
And  the  proceedings  were  countenanced  by  the  presence  of 
George  Grenville's  son  and  heir,1  and  crowned  by  a  dinner 
for  which  every  freeholder,  from  Lord  Temple  downwards, 
paid  his  shilling  for  himself ;  though  the  Whig  landowners 
took  care  that  there  should  be  plenty  of  good  wine  in  which 
to  drink  through  a  list  of  toasts  that  embraced  the  entire  body 
of  Whig  principles. 

It  was  not  in  every  count}7,  however,  that  the  most  power- 
ful nobleman  was  an  ex-lord  lieutenant,  still  sore  from  his 
dismissal.  Wherever  a  great  Whig  proprietor  was  not  irrec- 
oncilably embroiled  with  the  Court,  the  ministry  worked  upon 
his  hopes  with  every  bait  that  official  ingenuity  could  devise, 
and  upon  his  fears  with  an  argument  which,  as  things  then 
stood,  could  not  easily  be  answered.  "  The  king,"  it  was 
urged,  "  will  regard  your  remonstrances  and  addresses  as  so 
much  spoiled  sheepskin.  You  may  make  fine  speeches  about 
the  Bill  of  Bights,  and  drink  to  the  immortal  memory  of 
Lord  Chief-justice  Holt,2  from  now  till  the  next  general  elec- 

1  "A  very  sensible  boy,"  said  Burke,  "and  as  well  disposed  to  a  little 
faction  as  any  of  his  family.1' 

2  Lord  Chief-justice  Holt  was  just  then  enjoying  an  enormous  posthu- 


17G8-C9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  187 

tion,  and  Lord  Montagu's  butler  and  Mr.  Eliot's  boatmen 
will  still  vote  as  their  masters  bid  them.  When  you  have  ap- 
pealed to  the  country,  and  have  got  (as  in  the  present  state  of 
the  representation  you  know  very  well  that  you  will  get) 
nothing  for  your  pains,  what  will  remain  to  you  except  an 
appeal  to  the  sword  ?  Unless  you  are  prepared  to  go  into  re- 
bellion against  your  own  great  and  glorious  settlement,  you  had 
best  leave  this  business  of  petitioning  to  others."  With  such 
language  in  his  month,  Kigby  made  a  summer  tour  through 
the  east  of  England,  and,  by  the  admission  of  his  opponents, 
checkmated  the  party  of  action  in  at  least  three  counties. 
His  patron  was  less  successful  in  another  quarter.  The  Duke 
of  Bedford,  by  a  freak  of  fortune,  as  his  descendants  dutifully 
maintain,  but  more  probably  from  one  of  those  subtle  and  inde- 
finable external  peculiarities  the  memory  of  which  dies  with  the 
dead,  had  contrived  to  monopolize  a  share  of  the  public  hatred 
which,  if  apportioned  among  his  followers,  would  have  given 
each  of  them  almost  as  much  as  he  deserved.1    A  crack-brained 

mous  popularity  on  account  of  the  spirit  with  which,  in  the  reign  of  Anne, 
he  maintained  the  authority  of  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench  against  the 
arbitrary  encroachments  of  the  Commons.  The  Wilkites  made  much  of 
an  apocryphal  story  about  his  having  threatened  to  commit  the  Speaker 
to  Newgate. 

1  Walpole,  who  calls  the  Duke  of  Bedford  "  a  man  of  inflexible  honesty 
and  good- will  to  his  country,"  says  that  his  manner  was  impetuous,  but 
that  he  was  not  aware  of  it.  "  He  is  too  warm  and  overbearing  for  the 
world  to  think  well  of  him ;"  so  the  duke  would  say  of  a  statesman  whose 
demeanor,  whatever  it  might  be,  was  more  to  the  taste  of  the  world  than 
his  own.  This  single  touch,  to  those  who  have  noticed  how  it  is  that 
public  men  come  to  be  liked  or  disliked,  goes  further  to  explain  the 
duke's  unpopularity  than  all  the  malicious  and  unfounded  stories  (the 
consequence  of  that  unpopularity,  and  not  the  cause  of  it)  which  Junius 
garnished  and  dished  up  to  the  eternal  dishonor  of  the  libeller  rather 
than  of  the  libelled.  When  one  who  was  bountiful  up  to  the  utmost  limits 
of  common-sense  was  reviled  as  a  skinflint;  when  a  rigid  patriot  was 
charged  with  having  eaten  foreign  bribes ;  when  a  father  as  loving  and 
for  wiser  than  Lord  Holland  was  held  up  to  execration  for  having  in- 
sulted the  memory  of  an  only  son,  whose  death  all  but  killed  him— it  may 
reasonably  be  concluded  that  nothing  very  bad  could  be  proved  against 
the  object  of  such  random  calumnies.     It  is  satisfactory  to  know  that 


188  THE  EARLY   HISTOUY  OF  [Chap.  V. 

Plymouth  doctor,  whose  practice  was  not  so  large  but  that  he 
had  plenty  of  leisure  for  politics,  was  canvassing  Devonshire 
for  signatures  to  a  petition  praying  the  king  to  discard  his 
ministers.  The  Bedfords,  terrified  by  the  threatened  hostility 
of  a  county  which,  if  it  got  its  rights,  would  have  sent  to  Par- 
liament five-and-twenty  members,  adjured  their  chief  to  help 
them  with  his  influence  in  a  district  where  he  exercised  a 
princely  charity.  The  duke,  always  ready,  at  any  cost,  to 
oblige  adherents  who  gave  him  nothing  in  return  except  rol- 
licking company  which  he  should  have  been  ashamed  of  en- 
joying, and  periodical  news-letters  containing  more  impu- 
dence than  wit,  went  down  to  the  West  of  England,  and  with 
difficulty  got  back  alive.  He  was  safe  as  long  as  he  stayed  in 
Tavistock,  where  his  meat  was  in  every  mouth,  and  cloth  of 
his  ordering  on  every  loom ;  but  he  was  stoned  in  the  High 
Street  of  Honiton,  and  literally  hunted  out  of  the  town  with 
a  pack  of  bulldogs ;  and  at  Exeter  the  vergers  tried  in  vain  to 
keep  the  mob  out  of  the  cathedral  when  it  was  known  that 
he  was  seated  in  the  stalls. 

While  the  ministers,  by  playing  on  the  weakness  of  indi- 
viduals, might  hope  to  stifle  opinion  in  counties  which,  like 
Nottinghamshire  as  described  by  Sir  George  Savile,  consisted 
of  "four  dukes,  two  lords,  and  three  rabbit-warrens,"  they 
were  powerless  in  the  great  cities,  where  men  were  afraid  of 
nothing  except  the  ill-will  of  the  multitude.  Bristol  voted 
contempt  for  its  member,  who  had  been  bitter  against  Wilkes. 
Westminster  petitioned,  and  Newcastle;  and  a  remonstrance 
to  the  king,  outspoken  to  audacity,  was  sanctioned  at  a  gen- 

Junius  had  entirely  to  himself  the  gratification  which  the  most  infamous 
of  all  his  slanders  appeared  to  give  him.  Humbler  lampooners,  who  usu- 
ally were  only  too  glad  to  pick  up  his  cast-off  weapons,  would  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  this  poisoned  shaft.  The  only  tolerable  couplets  in  a  dull 
dialogue  of  the  dead  between  Bedford  and  Beckford  represent  the  duke 
as  speaking  with  feeling  of  his  irreparable  loss : 

"  Though  fate,  my  Tavistock,  soon  set  thee  free, 
And  early  stole  thee  from  the  world  and  me, 
Thy  merits  ever  will  that  world  deplore, 
And  thou  wilt  live  when  I  shall  be  no  more." 


17G8-G9.]  CHAKLES  JAMES  FOX.  1S9 

eral  meeting  of  the  Livery  in  Guildhall,  amidst  a  thunder  of 
applause  which,  as  Burke  told  Lord  Rockingham,  raised  the 
idea  that  he  had  previously  entertained  of  the  effect  of  the 
human  voice.  The  word  had  gone  forth  from  the  headquar- 
ters of  the  Opposition  to  prepare  addresses  calling  for  an  im- 
mediate dissolution,  in  spite  of  Lord  North's  solemn  warning 
that  any  such  document  would  render  all  who  signed  it  guilty 
of  a  breach  of  privilege,  to  be  avenged  with  the  gravest  penal- 
ties that  Parliament  could  inflict.  But  the  City  guilds,  backed 
by  ten  thousand  Yorkshire  yeomen,  could  afford  to  laugh  at 
the  sergeant  and  his  mace ;  and  the  demand  that  the  Com- 
mons should  be  sent  back  to  their  constituents  as  unfaithful 
stewards  was  soon  enforced  by  one  whose  person,  even  when 
he  stood  alone,  was  as  sacred  as  that  of  royalty  itself.  Lord 
Chatham,  in  seeking  emancipation  from  office,  had  obeyed  one 
of  those  intuitive  and  irrepressible  impulses  which  advise  bet- 
ter than  the  most  experienced  physician.  Within  three  weeks 
after  he  had  sent  back  the  privy  seal,  the  gout  came  to  his 
rescue  in  a  series  of  attacks  violent  and  frequent  in  propor- 
tion to  the  evil  for  which  it  was  the  long-expected  remedy. 
It  left  him  at  last,  happy,  hopeful,  and  serene ;  young,  with 
the  imperishable  youth  of  genius,  as  when  he  broke  his  first 
lance  by  the  side  of  Pulteney ;  his  ambition  satiated,  but 
his  patriotism  more  ardent  and  more  enlightened  than  ever. 
Chastened  by  suffering,  and  taught  by  his  own  errors,  he  was 
an  humbler  but  a  far  nobler  man  than  during  the  period  when 
his  immense  success,  too  recent  even  for  him  to  bear  wisely, 
had  made  him  wilful,  captious,  and  exacting.  In  different 
quarters,  and  with  very  different  feelings,  it  was  recognized 
that  he  was  no  longer  the  Chatham  of  1765.  The  first  use 
which  he  made  of  his  recovered  faculties  was  to  appear  at 
St.  James's,  where  the  king  learned,  in  the  course  of  twenty 
minutes'  conversation,  that  the  most  punctiliously  loyal  of  his 
subjects  was  no  longer  the  most  obsequious.  George  the 
Third  could  scarcely  believe  his  ears  when  a  statesman  who 
had  hitherto  approached  him  with  a  subservience  which  would 
have  been  almost  too  pronounced  for  his  royal  brother  of 
France  told  him  plainly  that  his  Majesty  had  been   badly 


190  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  V. 

counselled  in  the  matter  of  the  Middlesex  election,  and  bes;- 
ged  that  justice  might  be  done  to  his  own  disinterestedness 
in  case  he  should  find  himself  bound  in  conscience  to  oppose 
the  ministerial  measures. 

Disinterested  indeed  must  have  been  the  aims  of  one  to 
whom  a  place  was  a  torment,  and  who  had  drunk  so  deep  of 
glory  that  he  had  no  relish  for  those  periodical  displays  which 
sweeten  the  labors  of  opposition  to  vainer  and  slighter  men. 
A  fine  speech  could  add  nothing  to  his  fame.  A  successful 
division  would  only  surround  him  with  importunate  partisans, 
supplicating  him,  for  their  sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  coun- 
try, to  tear  himself  from  all  that  he  prized — from  the  peace- 
ful joys  of  a  married  life,  the  story  of  which  reads  like  an 
idyl ;  from  the  children  in  whose  sports  he  renewed  his  boy- 
hood, and  a  share  of  whose  studies  sufficed  his  not  very  rapa- 
cious appetite  for  printed  literature ;  from  his  planting,  his 
riding,  his  long  lazy  excursions  in  search  of  the  picturesque ; 
from  his  "farmer's  chimney  -  corner,''  the  smoke  of  which 
might  be  seen  from  the  Yale  of  Taunton,  and  his  summer  re- 
treat in  that  lovely  nook  on  the  south  coast  where  Devonshire 
marches  with  Dorsetshire.1    Hope  of  advantage  or  aggrandize- 

1  Wilkes  called  Chatham  the  worst  letter-writer  of  the  age ;  which, 
though  a  terrible  charge  in  the  eyes  of  Gilly  Williams  and  George  Sel- 
wyn,  would  be  regarded  with  indifference  by  one  who  lived  a  little  too 
consciously  in  the  spirit  of  Themistocles,  and  did  not  care  how  destitute 
he  might  be  of  lighter  accomplishments,  if  only  he  knew  how  to  make  a 
small  state  a  great  empire.  There  is,  however,  something  attractive  in 
Chatham's  domestic  correspondence,  marked,  as  it  is,  by  stateliness  of 
manner  contrasting  most  quaintly  with  extreme  simplicity  of  idea.  Noth- 
ing can  be  jprettier  than  his  letters  to  his  wife  from  Lyme  Regis,  where 
he  was  looking  after  the  health  of  his  younger,  and  the  military  studies 
of  his  elder,  son.  "We  returned  late,"  he  writes,  "  from  the  morning's 
ride,  as  the  all-exploring  eye  of  taste,  and  William's  ardor,  led  us  some- 
what beyond  our  intentions.  My  epistle,  therefore,  being  after  dinner, 
eaten  with  the  hunger  of  an  American  ranger,  will  be  the  shorter,  and  I 
fear  the  duller.  It  is  a  delight  to  see  William  see  nature  in  her  free  and 
wild  compositions ;  and  I  tell  myself,  as  we  go,  that  the  general  mother  is 
not  ashamed  of  her  child.  The  particular  loved  mother  of  our  promising 
tribe  has  sent  the  sweetest  and  most  encouraging  of  letters  to  the  young 
Vauban.     His  assiduous  application  to  his  profession  did  not  allow  him 


17G8-G9.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  191 

ment  for  himself  he  no  longer  entertained;  "but  without 
hope,"  as  he  quietly  said,  "  there  is  a  thing  called  duty."  The 
motive  that  brought  Chatham  back  into  public  life  was  the 
highest  and  purest  of  those  which  impel  to  action ;  and  puri- 
ty of  motive  produced,  as  it  ever  will  produce,  magnanimity 
of  conduct.  He  who,  when  engaged  in  fighting  his  own  bat-' 
tie,  had  never  troubled  himself  to  propitiate  a  foe  or  to  court 
an  ally  betook  himself,  now  that  his  views  were  no  longer 
personal,  to  the  work  of  forming  and  consolidating  a  party 
with  as  much  industry  as  a  young  politician  who  has  just  be- 
gun to  see  his  way  into  the  cabinet.  Determined  that  it 
should  not  be  his  fault  if  the  nation  remained  in  the  slouch 
where  it  then  was  struggling,  and  discerning  the  hurricane 
that  was  brewing  beyond  the  seas  with  a  glance  which  seldom 
deceived  him  when  it  swept  a  sufficiently  wide  horizon,  he 
girded  himself  to  the  effort  of  withstanding  those  enemies  of 
England  who  called  themselves  her  servants,  but  who  were 
more  dangerous  to  her  welfare  than  the  rulers  and  warriors 
of  France  whom  he  had  so  often  foiled  and  humiliated.  Con- 
scious that  his  one  poor  chance  of  victory  in  such  an  unequal 
conflict  depended  upon  his  first  having  conquered  himself,  he 
laid  aside  the  haughtiness  which  was  his  besetting  fault,  and 
the  affectation  that  was  his  favorite  weakness,  and  made  it  a 
duty  to  practise  a  consideration  for  others  which  hitherto  had 
been  sadly  wanting.  He  sought  and  obtained  a  reconciliation 
in  form  with  Lord  Temple,  who  had  deserted  him,  and  with 
George  Grenville,  who  had  sold  him  ;  and,  having  performed 
the  easier  task  of  pardoning  those  by  whom  he  had  been  in- 
jured, he  turned  to  others  who,  as  against  himself,  had  not  a 
little  to  forgive.  Doing  what  he  might  to  atone  for  the  chief, 
and  now  irreparable,  mistake  in  his  career,  he  made  frank  and 

to  accompany  us.  He  was  generously  occupied  in  learning  to  defend 
the  happy  land  we  were  enjoying.  Indeed,  my  life,  the  promise  of  our 
dear  children  does  me  more  good  than  the  purest  of  pure  air."  Lord 
Chatham's  anticipations  came  true  at  least  as  often  as  those  of  most  fa- 
thers; but  "William  was  destined  to  have  as  little  leisure  for  contemplat- 
ing the  natural  beauties  of  his  native  land  as  his  brother  was  successful 
in  fighting  for  it. 


192  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  V. 

almost  humble  advances  to  a  group  of  statesmen  who  held  his 
opinions,  and  who  were  imbued  with  principles  as  elevated  as 
his  own.  Those  advances  were  accepted  with  a  hesitation 
which  it  is  impossible  to  blame.  It  was  not  in  human  nature 
that  the  Bockinghams  should  forget  who  it  was  that  had  lent 
the  majesty  of  his  name  to  excuse  and  dignify  the  conspiracy 
which  overthrew  them.  So  cruel  a  wound  could  not  heal  at 
the  first  intention.  What  had  taken  him  again  to  court,  asked 
Burke,  except  that  he  might  talk  some  "  pompous,  creeping, 
ambiguous  matter  in  the  true  Chathamic  style  ?"  But  Chat- 
ham had  done,  then  and  forever,  with  bombast  and  mystery. 
Plainly  and  shortly  he  told  every  one  whom  he  met  what  his 
policy  was  to  be — tenderness  towards  the  American  colonists ; 
justice  to  the  Middlesex  electors.  This  policy  he  hoped  to  be 
permitted  to  pursue  in  company  with  those  who  had  already 
made  it  their  own,  and  to  whom,  if  success  crowned  their  com- 
mon endeavors,  he  should  cheerfully  hand  over  the  spoils  of 
victory.  "  For  my  part,"  he  said,  "I  am  grown  old,  and  un- 
able to  fill  any  office  of  business;  but  this  I  am  resolved  on, 
that  I  will  not  even  sit  at  council  but  to  meet  Lord  Bocking- 
ham.  He,  and  he  alone,  has  a  knot  of  spotless  friends  such 
as  ought  to  govern  this  kingdom."  That  was  the  spirit  in 
which  the  greatest  of  England's  statesmen  went  forth  to  the 
last  and  the  most  honorable  of  his  labors. 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  193 


CHAPTER  VI. 
1770. 

The  Effect  produced  upon  the  Political  World  by  the  Reappearance  of 
Lord  Chatham. — His  Speech  upon  the  Address. — Camden  and  Granby 
separate  themselves  from  their  Colleagues. — Savile  rebukes  the  House 
of  Commons. — Charles  Yorke  and  the  Great  Seal. — The  Duke  of  Graf- 
ton resigns. — David  Hume. — Lord  North  goes  to  the  Treasury. — 
George  the  Third,  his  Ministers  and  his  Policy. — George  Grenville  on 
Election  Petitions  and  the  Civil  List. — Chatham  denounces  the  Cor- 
ruption of  Parliament. — Symptoms  of  Popular  Discontent. — The  City's 
Remonstrance  presented  to  the  King  and  condemned  by  Parliament. — 
Imminent  Danger  of  a  Collision  between  the  Nation  and  its  Rulers. — 
The  Letter  to  the  King. — Horace  Walpole  on  the  Situation. — The  Per- 
sonal Character  of  Wilkes,  and  its  Influence  upon  the  History  of  the 
Country. — Wilkes  regains  his  Liberty. — His  Subsequent  Career,  and  the 
Final  Solution  of  the  Controversy  about  the  Middlesex  Election. 

Even  Chatham's  love  of  a  stage  effect  must  have  been  grat- 
ified to  the  full  by  the  commotion  which  his  political  resur- 
rection excited.  Nothing  resembling  it  can  be  quoted  from 
parliamentary  history ;  though  the  theatre  supplies  a  suffi- 
ciently close  parallel  in  the  situation  where  Lucio,  in  "  Meas- 
ure for  Measure,"  pulls  aside  the  cowl  of  the  friar  and  dis- 
closes the  features  of  the  ruler  who  has  returned  at  the  mo- 
ment when  he  is  least  expected  to  call  his  deputy  to  account 
for  the  evil  deeds  that  had  been  done  in  his  name.  Grafton, 
the  Angelo  of  the  piece,  accepted  his  fate  as  submissively  and 
almost  as  promptly  as  his  dramatic  prototype.  Still  loyal  at 
heart  to  the  great  man  whose  authority  he  had  abused,  or 
rather  permitted  others  to  abuse,  he  was  dumfounded  when 
Chatham,  emerging  from  the  royal  closet,  met  his  greeting 
with  the  frigid  politeness  of  a  redoubted  swordsman  who  sa- 
lutes before  a  mortal  duel.  The  unfortunate  prime-minister 
knew  that  he  had  sinned  too  conspicuously  to  be  forgiven,  and 
envied  in  his  heart  those  less  prominent  members  of  his  own 

13 


194  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

government  who  could  meet  their  old  lord  and  master  in  the 
confidence  that  he  would  not  be  too  hard  on  the  political 
frailties  of  such  humble  personages  as  a  lord  chancellor  or  a 
commander-in-chief  of  the  forces.  Every  one  who  had  served 
under  Chatham  was  as  restless  as  an  Austerlitz  veteran  who 
had  just  heard  of  the  landing  from  Elba.  Granby,  the  English 
Murat,  could  hardly  be  kept  from  at  once  resigning  his  im- 
mense appointments,  rendered  necessary  to  him  by  a  profuse 
and  ill-ordered  generosity  which  would  have  been  a  blot  on 
any  character  but  that  of  a  brave,  an  uncultured,  and  an  unas- 
suming soldier.  Lord  Camden,  who  so  little  approved  the  pol- 
icy of  his  colleagues  that  he  absented  himself  from  the  cabi- 
net whenever  the  business  on  hand  related  to  the  coercion  of 
America  or  the  suppression  of  Wilkes,  and  who  for  two  years 
past  had  never  opened  his  mouth  in  the  House  of  Peers  ex- 
cept to  put  the  question  from  the  woolsack,  viewed  the  reap- 
pearance of  Chatham  as  a  tacit  but  irresistible  appeal  to  a 
friendship  which  from  his  school-days  onwards  had  been  the 
ornament  and  delight  of  his  life  and  the  mainstay  of  his  pro- 
fessional advancement. 

And  yet,  though  all  that  was  best  in  the  ministry  already 
hankered  to  be  out  of  it,  the  Bedfords  had  still  fair  ground 
for  hoping  that  a  crisis  might  be  averted.  Horribly  frightened 
(to  use  Burke's  energetic  metaphor)  lest  the  table  they  had  so 
well  covered  and  at  which  they  had  sat  down  with  so  good  an 
appetite  should  be  kicked  over  in  the  scuffle,  they  still  could 
not  bring  themselves  to  believe  that  Chatham  would  adopt  the 
cause  of  the  Middlesex  electors.  For  wThen  during  the  first 
months  of  the  late  government  Wilkes  applied  to  the  secretary 
of  state  for  permission  to  live  unmolested  in  England,  the  Duke 
of  Grafton,  clever  in  small  things,  had  contrived  to  shift  the 
odium  of  a  refusal  from  himself  to  the  prime-minister.  The 
unhappy  exile  stole  back  to  France,  persuaded  that  he  had  a 
vindictive  personal  enemy  in  Lord  Chatham,  who,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  had  never  been  informed  of  his  petition,  and  wTho, 
if  he  thought  about  him  at  all,  regarded  him  as  a  cosmopoli- 
tan able  and  willing  to  make  himself  at  home  in  a  country 
where  claret  was  and  sheriffs  officers  were  not.     In  the  an- 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  195 

guisli  of  Ills  disappointment  Wilkes  attacked  his  fancied  op- 
pressor with  an  audacious  and  observant  bitterness,  admirably 
calculated  to  wound  a  man  whom  just  then  none  dared  to  as- 
sail except  with  remonstrances  against  his  overweening  pride 
and  predominating  power,  which  were  compliments  more  to 
the  taste  of  their  object  than  so  many  set  panegyrics.  The 
Bedfords,  in  January,  1768,  had  been  chuckling  over  the  nov- 
el sensation  which  Chatham  must  have  experienced  at  finding 
himself  described,  in  a  pamphlet  that  sold  like  wildfire,  as  the 
warming-pan  for  Lord  Bute,  as  the  first  comedian  of  the  age, 
as  so  puffed  up  by  the  idea  of  his  own  importance  that  he  was 
blind  to  the  superior  merit  of  a  brother-in-law  with  whom  he 
was  on  the  worst  of  terms;1  and  the  motives  which  in  Janu- 
ary, 1770,  induced  the  great  earl  to  stand  forth  in  defence  of 
one  who  had  never  written  so  ingeniously  as  when  he  was 
trying  to  hurt  the  feelings  of  his  advocate  were  altogether 
outside  the  range  of  their  comprehension.  To  forgive  those 
who  had  something  to  give,  and  to  forget  where  anything  was 
to  be  got,  was  a  form  of  magnanimity  to  which  they  them- 
selves were  at  all  times  equal;  but  not  even  Sandwich,  writ- 
ing confidentially  to  Weymouth,  would  have  suggested  that 
Chatham  had  any  longer  an  eye  to  office.  They  accounted  for 
his  conduct  after  the  fashion  of  their  tribe.  When  it  began  to 
dawn  upon  them  that  a  statesman  who,  if  he  played  a  selfish 
game,  might  have  been  in  power  for  the  rest  of  his  natural 
life,  deliberately  preferred,  at  the  bidding  of  his  conscience,  to 
brave  the  anger  of  a  sovereign  whom  he  adored  on  behalf  of 
a  penniless  adventurer  who  had  libelled  him,  they  gratified 
their  malice  and  preserved  inviolate  their  theory  of  the 
springs  of  human  action  by  spreading  a  report  that  the  most 

1  "  A  proud,  insolent,  overbearing,  ambitious  man  is  always  full  of  the 
ideas  of  his  own  importance,  and  vainly  imagines  himself  superior  to  the 
equality  necessary  among  real  friends.  Lord  Chatham  declared  in  Par- 
liament the  strongest  attachment  to  Lord  Temple,  one  of  the  greatest 
characters  our  country  can  boast,  and  said  he  would  live  and  die  with  his 
noble  brother.  He  has  received  obligations  of  the  first  magnitude  from 
that  noble  brother;  yet  what  trace  of  gratitude  was  ever  found  in  any 
part  of  his  conduct  ?" 


196  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

impassioned  of  speakers  had  at  last  harangued  himself  out  of 
his  senses.  As,  one  after  another,  resolutions  were  laid  on  the 
table  of  the  House  of  Lords  expounding  in  correct  yet  stirring 
phrases  the  principles  of  freedom  and  justice  for  which,  time 
out  of  mind,  all  Englishmen  worthy  of  the  name  had  striven  ; 
and  as  each  successive  declaration  of  public  right  was  enforced 
by  outbursts  of  majestic  eloquence  which  have  had  the  rare 
fortune  to  obtain  a  place  in  the  familiar  literature  of  a  nation 
that  ordinarily  dwells  but  little  upon  the  oratory  of  the  past  ;x 
Kigby  and  his  fellows  hardened  themselves  against  the  voice 
of  reason  and  the  disapprobation  of  posterity  by  reminding 
each  other  that  they  had  only  to  do  with  another  "  mad  mo- 
tion of  the  mad  Earl  of  Chatham." 

Till  Parliament  met  (and  the  ministry,  anxious  to  postpone 
.the  evil  hour,  took  the  unusual  course  of  dispensing  with  a 
winter  session),  Lord  Chatham,  said  Burke,  kept  hovering  in 
the  air,  waiting  to  souse  down  upon  his  prey.  And,  indeed, 
nothing  short  of  an  Homeric  simile  could  depict  the  panic  and 
the  scurry  which  ensued  upon  the  first  swoop  of  the  eagle 
whose  beak  and  talons  wTere  henceforward  to  be  exercised  on 
a  new  hunting-field.  For  the  House  of  Lords  had  never  really 
heard  Chatham.  During  the  short  period  that  he  sat  there  as 
prime-minister  he  had  not  been  himself  either  in  body  or  in 
intellect.  With  breaking  health  and  a  bad  cause,  he  had  been 
confronted  not  unsuccessfully  by  men  who  were  armed  for 
the  unequal  combat  with  no  weapon  except  the  knowledge 
that  they  were  in  the  right.  When,  borrowing  the  jargon 
which  was  fashionable  at  the  palace,  he  declaimed  against  the 
most  modest  and  long-suffering  set  of  statesmen  that  ever  did 
the  king's  business  as  "  the  proudest  connection  in  the  coun- 
try," he  had  been  plainly  told  by  the  Duke  of  Richmond  that 
the  nobility  would  not  be  browbeaten  by  an  insolent  minister. 


1  Any  one  who  Las  been  behind  the  scenes  during  the  preparations  for 
speech-day  at  a  public  school  knows  that  though  a  well-read  master  may 
insist  on  an  extract  from  Canning  or  Grattan,  a  boy,  if  left  to  himself,  will 
choose  something  of  Chatham's,  and  in  most  cases  something  which 
Chatham  spoke  in  the  spring  of  1770. 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  197 

But  no  one  ventured  to  rebuke  him  now.  On  the  afternoon 
of  the  ninth  of  January,  the  first  of  the  session  of  1770,  when 
the  king  had  read  his  speech  and  had  returned  to  St.  James's, 
the  Lords  were  invited  humbly  to  assure  his  Majesty  that  they 
would  dutifully  assist  him  in  doing  as  much  mischief  in  either 
hemisphere  as  in  his  wisdom  he  thought  advisable.  As  soon 
as  the  noble  seconder  had  stammered  through  his  last  sen- 
tence, Chatham  rose  to  his  feet  and  informed  the  members  of 
the  government  that  he  was,  and  had  the  best  of  reasons  to 
be,  as  loyal  as  any  of  them,  and  that  he  should  give  substan- 
tial evidence  of  his  loyalty  by  telling  the  truth  to  his  royal 
master.  And  then,  after  a  few  sentences  of  good-will  towards 
his  fellow-subjects  in  America,  which  Americans  still  quote 
with  gratitude,  he  discoursed  briefly  and  calmly  of  the  ques- 
tion of  the  day,  and  concluded  by  calling  on  the  Peers  to  in- 
form the  mind  of  their  sovereign,  and  pacify  the  just  irritation 
of  his  people,  by  declaring  that  the  House  of  Commons,  in 
proceeding  of  its  own  authority  to  incapacitate  Wilkes  from 
serving  in  Parliament,  had  usurped  a  power  which  belonged 
to  all  the  three  branches  of  the  legislature.1  He  had  never 
spoken  more  quietly  or  with  more  instant  and  visible  results. 
As  he  resumed  his  seat  Lord  Camden  started  up,  displaying  in 
word  and  gesture  the  emotion  of  one  in  whom  a  long  and 
painful  mental  struggle  had  been  brought  to  a  sudden  end  by 

1  The  best  point  in  Chatham's  first  speech  on  this  occasion  was  his"  al- 
lusion to  the  retribution  which  eventually  befell  the  nobles  of  Castile, 
who  had  been  cajoled  by  Charles  the  Fifth  into  helping  him  to  corrupt 
the  popular  element  in  the  Cortes ;  and  its  literary  interest  is  derived 
from  his  admiring  mention  of  Dr.  Robertson,  whose  style  was  just  then 
the  delight  of  all  British  readers,  and  whose  profits  were  the  envy  of 
most  Southern  authors.  "  I  cannot  help  thinking,"  said  Walpole,  "  that 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  Scotch  puffing  and  partiality,  when  the  booksell- 
ers have  given  the  doctor  three  thousand  pounds  for  his  '  Life  of  Charles 
the  Fifth,'  for  composing  which  he  does  not  pretend  to  have  obtained 
any  new  materials."  Walpole  had  justification  for  his  criticism ;  but  such 
is  the  charm  of  a  clear  narrative  by  a  writer  who,  without  being  dishon- 
est, can  make  the  most  of  what  he  knows  that  Robertson's  work  will 
probably  survive  the  productions  of  the  industrious  and  very  able  schol- 
ars who  have  followed  him  over  the  same  ground. 


198  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

a  flash  of  conviction.  lie  had  accepted  the  great  seal,  he  said, 
without  conditions,  fully  intending  never  to  be  led  into  courses 
which  he  could  not  approve ;  but  experience  taught  him  that 
he  had  overrated  his  own  independence.  Often  had  he  hung 
his  head  in  council,  and  showed  in  his  countenance  a  dissent 
which  it  would  have  been  useless  to  express  in  words ;  but  the 
time  had  come  when  he  must  speak  out,  and  proclaim  to  the 
world  that  his  opinions  were  those  of  the  great  man  whose 
presence  had  again  breathed  life  into  the  State ;  and  that  if  in 
his  character  of  a  judge  he  were  to  pay  any  respect  to  this  un- 
constitutional and  illegal  vote  of  the  House  of  Commons,  he 
should  look  upon  himself  as  a  traitor  to  his  trust  and  an 
enemy  to  his  country. 

The  thunder-stroke  of  such  a  confession,  from  the  keeper 
of  the  royal  conscience,  could  not  be  parried  by  the  hackneyed 
tricks  of  the  parliamentary  fencing-school.  Lord  Mansfield, 
whom  it  never  took  much  to  disconcert,  began  by  informing 
his  audience  that  his  sentiments  on  the  legality  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  House  of  Commons  were  locked  up  within 
his  own  breast,  and  should  die  with  him ;  and  what  he  said 
afterwards  did  little  to  remove  the  bewildering  impression 
which  had  been  produced  by  this  extraordinary  preface.  He 
was  followed  by  Chatham,  who,  even  in  the  more  strictly  kept 
lists  of  the  Commons,  had  always  treated  the  forms  of  the 
House  as  made  for  anybody  but  himself,  and  who  positively 
revelled  in  the  license  of  the  Lords.  In  a  second  speech, 
which  his  hearers  were  at  liberty  to  call  a  reply  if  they  could 
forget  that,  according  to  every  rule  of  debate,  he  was  forbid- 
den to  make  one,  he  invoked  the  highest  traditions  of  our 
national  liberty  against  the  many-headed  tyranny  of  an  un- 
scrupulous senate,  and  electrified  friend  and  foe  alike  by  an 
appeal  to  Magna  Charta,  which,  as  a  stroke  of  the  genius  that 
is  above  and  outside  art,  ranks  with  the  oath  that  Demosthe- 
nes swore  by  the  dead  of  Marathon.  It  was  all  in  vain  that 
the  Peers,  not  flattered  by  being  called  silken  barons,  declined 
by  an  overwhelming  majority  to  imitate  their  ancestors  at 
Runnymede.  It  was  all  in  vain  that  Sandwich  defied  the 
Opposition  to  make  any  sense  out  of  the  rhetoric  that  they 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  199 

had  been  applauding.  Chatham,  whose  speaking  was  a  sort 
of  inspired  conversation  which  affected  every  one  who  was 
present  as  if  it  had  been  addressed  especially  to  himself,  had 
been  perfectly  well  understood  both  in  the  House  and  under 
the  gallery.  While,  more  than  any  other  orator,  he  gained  by 
being  heard,  there  was  always  something  to  take  away  which 
would  bear  the  carriage.  In  as  short  a  time  as  was  required 
for  an  eager  partisan,  primed  with  news,  to  cross  the  lobby,  it 
was  known  in  the  Commons  that  Pitt  had  made  a  speech  for 
Wilkes  surpassing  anything  that  he  had  done  since  the  night 
when  he  answered  Grenville  about  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp 
Act ;  and  the  fragments  of  his  eloquence,  which  were  soon 
going  the  round  of  the  benches,  stirred  his  old  followers  like 
the  peal  of  a  distant  trumpet.  Granby,  who  always  argued 
as  if  he  were  under  fire,  informed  the  House,  in  half  a  dozen 
short  and  plain  sentences,  that  he  now  saw  the  Middlesex  elec- 
tion in  its  true  light,  and  that  he  should  lament  the  part  he 
had  taken  in  seating  Luttrell  as  the  greatest  misfortune  of  his 
life.  Sir  George  Savile,  picking  his  phrases  with  delibera- 
tion, declared  that  the  vote  for  expelling  Wilkes,  which  he 
characterized  as  the  beginning  of  sorrows,  was  the  offspring  of 
corruption,  and  told  the  majority,  in  so  many  words,  that  they 
had  betrayed  their  constituents.  Lord  North,  who  knew  the 
force  of  such  an  accusation  from  the  mouth  of  one  who  has 
been  cited  by  historians  as  the  model  of  what  a  great  country 
gentleman  should  be,  and  whose  name  contemporary  satirists 
employed  as  a  synonym  for  probity,  took  occasion  on  the  next 
day  to  express  his  assurance  that  Sir  George  had  spoken  in 
warmth.  "  No,"  said  Savile ;  "  I  spoke  what  I  thought  last 
night,  and  I  think  the  same  this  morning.  Honorable  mem- 
bers have  betrayed  their  trust.  I  will  add  no  epithets,  be- 
cause epithets  only  weaken.  I  will  not  say  they  have  be- 
trayed their  country  corruptly,  flagitiously,  and  scandalously ; 
but  I  do  say  that  they  have  betrayed  their  country,  and  I 
stand  here  to  receive  the  punishment  for  having  said  so." 
Some  young  and  foolish  members,  among  whom  it  is  needless 
to  say  that  Charles  Fox  was  conspicuous,  talked  loudly  about 
the  scandal  of  condoning  so  pointed  an  insult  to  their  august 


200  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

assembly ;  but  their  elders  judged  it  wiser  to  do  by  the  affront 
as  they  had  done  by  the  Treasury  bank-bills  which  had  earned 
it  for  them.  It  was  understood  that  if  Savile  were  sent  to  the 
Tower,  his  friends  would  insist  on  going  with  him ;  and  the 
ministers,  who  had  quite  enough  trouble  with  a  single  martyr 
to  liberty  on  their  hands,  could  easily  anticipate  the  sort  of 
life  which  they  would  lead  with  the  Cavendishes  on  one  side 
of  the  prison  doors,  and  the  Yorkshire  freeholders  on  the 
other. 

Granby  was  entreated  by  his  colleagues  to  remain  in  office ; 
but  he  knew  them  better  than  to  constitute  them  the  judges 
of  what  his  honor  demanded.  On  the  sixteenth  of  January, 
a  week  after  he  had  made  a  clean  breast  of  it  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  he  threw  up  the  command  of  the  army  and  the 
mastership  of  the  ordnance,  and  went  into  poverty,  as  he  had 
so  often  gone  into  the  throat  of  death,  determined  that,  come 
what  might,  Pitt  should  never  say  that  he  had  flinched  from 
his  duty.  No  attempt  was  made  to  retain  Lord  Camden. 
The  Court  had  never  forgiven  him  his  celebrated  decision 
against  the  legality  of  general  warrants.  Prerogative  kings, 
it  has  been  well  said,  are  the  making  of  constitutional  lawyers  ;* 
and  George  the  Third  had  long  chafed  against  the  necessity 
of  keeping  about  his  person,  in  the  place  of  honor,  the  earliest 
and  most  successful  specimen  of  his  own  manufacture.  But 
to  dismiss  the  only  judge  who,  as  a  judge,  had  acquired  a 
European  reputation — whom  foreigners,  after  they  had  heard 
Pitt  at  Westminster  and  Garrick  at  Drury  Lane,  used  to  be 
taken  to  see  in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  as  the  third 
wonder  of  England — and  to  dismiss  him  without  having 
secured  in  his  place  a  lawyer  of  high  distinction  and  respecta- 
ble character,  would  have  been  to  strike  the  last  prop  from 
beneath  the  tottering  administration.  So  Grafton  was  well 
aware;  but  his  adversaries  had  discerned  more  quickly  than 
himself  where  the  key  of  the  situation  lay.    On  the  very  night 

1  This  remark  is  made  by  Lord  Albemarle  in  his  "Memoirs  of  Rock- 
ingham," a  mine  of  Whig  tradition,  admirably  worked  according  to  the 
good  old  Whig  processes. 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  201 

that  Lord  Camden  had  performed  his  memorable  act  of  mu- 
tiny, Lord  Temple  and  Lord  Shelburne  had  been  prompt  to 
testify  their  admiration  of  his  conduct  in  terms  carefully 
framed  for  the  purpose  of  gibbeting  by  anticipation  his  suc- 
cessor. In  the  teeth  of  their  withering  denunciation,  the  most 
eminent  men  at  the  bar  and  on  the  bench  refused  even  to  be 
tempted  by  the  great  prize  of  their  profession.  Dunning, 
whom  Chatham,  always  on  the  search  for  merit,  had  made 
solicitor-general,  and  who  was  true  to  his  patron  in  opinions 
and  in  affection,  could  not  think  of  accepting  an  offer  which, 
according  to  Chatham's  brother-in-law,  would  be  rejected  by 
anybody  but  an  obsequious  hireling,  and,  according  to  Chat- 
ham's political  aide-de-camp,  would  have  no  charms  except  for 
a  wretch  more  base  and  mean-spirited  than  could  be  found  in 
the  kingdom.  Sir  Eardley  Wilmot,  the  Chief-justice  of  the 
Common  Pleas,  was  earnestly  and  frequently  pressed  to  take 
the  great  seal  into  his  custody,  with  any  rank  in  the  peerage 
or  slice  off  the  pension-list  that  he  cared  to  name.  But  that 
simple  and  sincere  man,  who  was  a  lawyer  as  Reynolds  was 
an  artist  or  Brindley  an  engineer,  preferred  the  regular  and 
solid  work  of  his  calling  to  the  ambition  of  making,  and  the 
annoyance  of  enduring,  party  speeches  in  the  House  of  Lords 
until  a  change  of  government  should  condemn  him,  according 
to  his  own  vigorous  expression,  to  live  thenceforward  on  the 
public  like  an  almsman.  It  was  hardly  worth  while  to  go 
through  the  form  of  begging  Lord  Mansfield  to  be  chancellor. 
He  was  too  intelligent  and  too  timid  to  be  dazzled  by  the  at- 
tractions of  an  office  which  would  add  nothing  to  his  author- 
ity, and  would  lay  him  under  the  obligation  of  defending 
every  folly  of  Grafton  and  every  job  of  Sandwich  against 
Camden  with  his  hands  untied,  and  Chatham  with  his  brain 
unclouded. 

There  only  remained  a  single  member  of  the  profession 
who,  as  a  candidate  for  the  chancellorship,  could  be  mention- 
ed in  the  same  day  with  Mansfield,  Wilmot,  and  Dunning. 
Charles  Yorke  had  been  in  office  with  the  Eockinghams,  and, 
when  their  government  fell,  they  were  proud  at  being  accom- 
panied into  opposition  by  one  who  would  have  been  an  orna- 


202  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

merit  to  any  party.  Grafton,  whose  short  political  life — for 
he  was  still  but  four-and-thirty — had  coincided  with  a  period 
during  which  mutual  treachery  and  disloyalty  among  public 
men  were  preached  as  a  gospel  by  the  Court,  and  who  had  been 
accustomed  to  expect  any  politician  to  change  sides  after  a 
month's  coquetry,  and  any  lawyer  on  a  moment's  notice,  saw 
no  reason  why  he  should  not  offer  Yorke  the  great  seal  as 
freely  and  as  openly  as  to  his  own  attorney-general.  But  he 
forgot  that  the  man  whom  he  counted  on  buying  as  Bute  had 
bought  Henry  Fox,  or  as  he  himself  had  bought  the  Bedfords, 
was  one  of  a  group  of  statesmen  who,  after  a  long  and  shame- 
ful interval,  had  once  more  introduced  into  the  relations  of 
parliamentary  life  that  stanch  and  chivalrous  fidelity  which 
is  now  the  common  quality  of  both  our  great  national  parties. 
Richmond  and  Portland  and  the  Keppels  had  tasted  the 
pleasures  of  personal  intimacy,  enhanced  by  an  identity  of 
political  views  and  a  brotherhood  in  political  fortunes ;  and 
they  were  surprised  and  indignant  when  they  were  informed 
of  Grafton's  overtures,  and  deeply  hurt  when  they  detected 
indications  that  the  proposal  had  not  been  without  its  effect. 
They  clearly  gave  Yorke  to  understand  that  he  must  choose 
between  the  proffered  dignity  and  their  friendship ;  and  such 
was  the  binding  power  of  old  and  familiar  ties,  which  it  re- 
quired a  stronger  and  coarser  hand  than  his  to  snap  at  the 
first  effort,  that,  with  a  heart  fluttering  between  scruples  and 
desires,  he  mustered  courage  enough  to  go  back  to  the  Duke 
of  Grafton  with  a  refusal.  The  duke  sent  him  on  to  the 
palace,  where  the  unhappy  man  was  so  overcome  by  his  per- 
plexity and  distress,  which  were  evidently  preying  on  his 
health,  that  the  king  bade  him  give  the  matter  up  and  set  his 
mind  at  ease,  as,  after  what  he  had  said  to  excuse  himself,  it 
would  be  cruel  to  press  him. 

Cruel  indeed  it  was.  Lord  Hardwicke,  throughout  the 
wretched  business,  played  a  true  brother's  part,  trying,  by 
every  means  at  his  command,  to  make  the  waverer  see  his 
diity ;  while  at  the  same  time  he  sturdily,  and  almost  angrily, 
insisted  that  Rockingham,  and  Rockingham's  friends,  should 
set  the  most  favorable  construction  upon  their  old  colleague's 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  203 

vacillation.1  Seriously  alarmed  by  the  little  that  Yorke,  op- 
pressed by  an  unnatural  and  uneasy  reserve,  which  in  a  sensi- 
tive man  is  the  worst  of  symptoms,  could  be  got  to  tell  him 
about  his  interview  with  the  king,  Hardwicke  declined  to 
leave  him  until,  with  fraternal  courage,  he  had  secured  from 
him  a  promise  that  he  would  take  a  good  dose  of  physic  and 
spend  the  next  day  quietly  at  home. 

But,  before  many  hours  had  passed,  the  fish  was  again  at  the 
bait.  Yorke's  character  and  circumstances  conspired  to  ren- 
der the  temptation  irresistible.  With  brilliant  abilities  and 
all  the  reflected  advantages  of  the  great  Lord  Hard  wick e's 
high  station  and  unstained  renown,  he  began  life  possessed  of 
every  good  thing  that  could  be  inherited  except  the  stout 
heart  which  had  brought  his  father  from  an  attorney's  drudge 
to  be  the  most  prosperous,  if  not  the  most  famous,  of  chancel- 
lors. A  successful  author,  according  to  the  taste  of  his  day, 
while  yet  a  boy,2  and  in  large  practice  at  the  bar  while  still  a 

1  On  the  one  hand,  Lord  Hardwicke  insisted  with  Yorke  that,  before 
joining  the  government,  he  should  see  his  way  very  clear  (which  he  cer- 
tainly could  not)  towards  conscientiously  adopting  the  Court  view  of  the 
American  difficulty  and  the  Middlesex  election.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
his  letters  to  Lord  Rockingham,  he  made  the  best  of  his  brother's  hesita- 
tion, and  the  most  of  his  sacrifices.  "  I  thank  you  for  your  communica- 
tion," he  writes  on  Monday,  the  fifteenth  of  January,  while  Yorke's  de- 
cision was  in  abeyance.  "  I  see  the  times  are  running  into  great  violences, 
and,  if  so,  honest  men  must  act  according  to  their  consciences.  Your 
lordship  will  know  to-morrow  the  resolution  taken  in  the  great  affair.  I 
know  not  what '  kennel '  you  allude  to.  I  think  all  parties  are  getting 
deeper  into  the  dirt."  On  the  evening  of  the  same  day  he  says,  "I  am 
authorized  by  my  brother  to  acquaint  you  that  he  has  finally  declined 
the  seals.  How  far  he  has  judged  right  or  wrong  will  only  be  known  by 
the  consequences.  I  may  fairly  say  that  he,  as  well  as  his  near  relations, 
have  been  victims  to  the  violence  of  party  and  their  own  moderation." 

2  The  young  Earl  of  Hardwicke  and  Charles  Yorke  wrote  between  them 
"  The  Athenian  Letters,"  a  work  not  inferior  in  merit  to  the  best  of  those 
pseudo-classical  productions  which  unite  the  dulness  of  a  political  me- 
moir to  the  affectations  and  inaccuracies  of  an  historical  novel,  and  which 
leave  on  the  palate  a  sickly  taste  that  is  perhaps  the  most  disagreeable 
of  all  literary  sensations.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  any  human  be- 
ing who  could  read  a  translation  of  Thucydides  should  sit  down  to  two 


204  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VI. 

minor,  Yorke  entered  Parliament  at  four-and-twenty,  amidst 
the  universal  welcome  of  an  assembly  which  confidently  hoped 
to  have  reason  for  acknowledging 

"How  sharp  the  spur  of  worthy  ancestry 
When  kindred  virtues  fan  the  generous  mind 
Of  Somers'  nephew  and  of  Hardwicke's  son." 

Unfortunately  his  was  not  one  of  those  rare  natures  which 
can  be  petted  by  the  world  without  being  spoiled.  He  did 
not  idle ;  he  did  not  lose  his  balance ;  he  deserved  all  that  he 
got,  and  went  the  right  way  to  get  it :  but  his  idea  of  his  own 
merits  was  so  extravagant  that  he  never  heartily  enjoyed  a 
success,  and  took  the  inevitable  disappointments  of  West- 
minster Hall  and  the  House  of  Commons  as  so  many  personal 
insults  on  the  part  of  destiny.  He  thought  it  a  grievance 
that  he  was  not  a  judge  at  thirty,  and  induced  his  friends  to 
think  so  too.  He  murmured  at  being  nothing  more  than  so- 
licitor-general at  thirty-three.  His  chagrin  when  Pratt,  much 
his  senior,  and  indubitably  his  superior,  was  made  attorney- 
general  over  his  head  in  the  summer  of  1757  was  too  deep 
for  words ;  and  the  feeling  rankled  until,  after  the  lapse  of 
many  years,  it  found  vent  in  the  act  which  was  his  destruc- 
tion. But  it  was  after  the  fall  of  the  Rockingham  adminis- 
tration that  his  egotism  was  seen  in  the  most  unpleasing  re- 
lief as  against  the  patriotism  of  better  men.  While  Savile 
and  Burke  were  planning  what  they  could  do  for  the  country, 
Yorke  was  forever  brooding  over  what  he  might  have  done 
for  himself.  Politicians  out  of  office,  who  work  hard  for 
nothing,  are  always  inclined  mildly  to  wTonder  at  the  em- 
phasis with  which  a  thriving  barrister  accuses  the  ill-luck  that 
condemns  him  to  sit  on  the  shady  side  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons; but  Yorke  altogether  overstepped  the  conceded  limits 
of  professional  grumbling.  Endowed  with  an  ample  share  of 
his  father's  fortune;  happily  married;  the  heir-presumptive 
to  an  earldom ;  dividing  with  Horace  Walpole  the  empire  of 
polite  letters,  and  with  Wedderburn  the  most  lucrative  and 

volumes  of  the  correspondence  of  the  agent  to  the  King  of  Persia,  sup- 
posed to  be  resident  at  Athens  during  the  Peloponnesian  war. 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  205 

interesting  business  of  the  law-courts — he  lived  on  brambles 
as  long  as  somebody  else  was  lord  chancellor.  The  corre- 
spondence which  he  maintained  with  foreigners  of  talent  and 
distinction  carried  his  sorrows  far  and  wide  through  Europe 
in  quest  of  sympathy.  Lord  Campbell  has  printed  the  well- 
turned  phrases  in  which  Stanislaus  Augustus,  writing  from 
Warsaw,  delicately  reminded  Charles  Yorke  that  it  was  too 
much  to  expect  a  King  of  Poland  to  pity  anybody,  and  least 
of  all  a  man  who  could  command,  and  was  framed  to  appre- 
ciate, a  life  of  dignified  and  cultured  ease.  But  dignified  and 
cultured  ease  seemed  purgatory,  or  worse,  in  the  eyes  of  one 
who  was  perpetually  tortured  by  the  feeling  that,  unless  he 
could  reach  the  pinnacle  which  fortune  had  hitherto  made  in- 
accessible to  him,  his  career  would  have  been  nothing  better 
than  a  long  succes  Westime.  Though  he  had  started  half-way 
up  the  hill,  things  had  so  turned  out  that  the  paths  which  led 
to  the  summit  had  successively  been  closed  to  him,  until  one 
remained  open,  and  one  only.  As  long  as  Camden  stayed  in 
the  government,  Yorke  was  chancellor  designate  of  the  Oppo- 
sition ;  and  a  change  of  administration,  which  was  always  pos- 
sible and  now  seemed  imminent,  would  put  him  in  secure  pos- 
session of  the  great  seal.  But  the  scene  of  the  ninth  of  Jan- 
uary in  the  Lords  had  destroyed  his  solitary  chance.  Whigs 
and  Wilkites  had  now  a  hero  in  Camden,  for  whom  no  praise 
could  be  too  warm,  and,  when  the  day  of  triumph  arrived,  no 
reward  could  be  too  splendid.  If  the  Rockinghams  came  in 
on  the  question  of  the  Middlesex  election,  their  chancellor 
must  be  the  statesman  whose  fame  as  a  judge  was  identified 
with  the  earliest,  and,  as  a  political  martyr,  with  the  latest, 
phase  of  the  endless  controversy,  and  who  was  in  the  inti- 
mate confidence  and  under  the  special  protection  of  the  great 
orator  without  whose  hearty  assistance  they  could  not  retain 
power  for  a  fortnight.' 

And  so,  with  thirteen  years  less  of  life  and  hope  before  him, 
Charles  Yorke  found  himself  once  again  postponed  to  his  an- 

1  It  is  quite  clear  from  Lord  Hardwicke's  letters  that  the  Yorkcs  be- 
lieved that,  in  case  of  a  change  of  government,  the  selection  of  a  chancel- 
lor would  lie  with  Chatham,  and  that  he  would  choose  Camden. 


206  THE   EARLY   IIISTORr   OF  [Chap.  VI. 

cient  rival.  Camden,  after  making  his  market  by  conforming 
to  the  Court,  was  now  at  the  eleventh  hour  to  be  richly  recom- 
pensed for  his  tardy  independence,  while  he  himself  was  left 
to  the  reflection,  so  cruel  to  a  wordly-minded  man,  that  he  had 
been  disinterested  gratis.  The  strain  was  too  much  for  his 
constancy.  After  a  broken  night,  leaving  his  medicine  un- 
tasted  on  the  table,  he  went  of  his  own  accord  to  the  levee. 
His  appearance  there  at  such  a  time  could  have  only  one 
meaning.  The  king,  who  saw  that  he  wanted  to  have  his 
hands  forced,  drew  him  into  the  closet,  and,  dropping  the  tone 
of  the  previous  evening,  told  him  that  he  must  never  look  to 
be  forgiven  if  he  failed  his  sovereign  in  such  a  plight.  He 
himself  (he  declared)  had  been  unable  to  sleep  from  vexation 
at  the  thought  of  Yorke's  having  declined  to  rescue  him  from 
a  "degrading  thraldom" — the  thraldom  of  submitting  to  see 
America  saved  and  England  pacified  by  statesmen  who  were 
his  own  devoted  servants  and  Yorke's  loving  friends.  Such 
was  the  reasoning  which  persuaded  the  unhappy  man  to  set 
at  naught  the  claims  of  what  in  any  other  company  he  would 
have  called  duty  and  honor;  but  few  have  the  presence  of 
mind  to  scrutinize  the  language  of  entreaty  when  a  monarch 
condescends  to  plead.  Yorke  consented  to  be  chancellor. 
The  seal  was  taken  from  Lord  Camden,  who  that  night,  for 
the  first  time  during  many  months,  enjoyed  the  sweet  and 
tranquil  sleep  that  was  never  to  revisit  his  successor.  He  re- 
tired, not  as  other  chancellors,  loaded  with  multifarious  spoils, 
but  far  nearer  poverty  than  he  had  been  since  the  days  when 
he  rode  the  barren  round  of  the  Western  circuit,  a  briefless 
and  rather  hopeless  barrister,  mounting  himself  sorrily  out  of 
the  proceeds  of  his  college  fellowship.  His  son,  who  inherit- 
ed much  of  his  capacity  and  all  his  public  spirit,  never  could 
recover  for  the  family  the  favor  of  their  sovereign.  When 
the  second  Lord  Cam  den  was  invested  with  the  Garter,  in  token 
of  eminent  services  which  he  made  it  his  pride  not  to  permit 
the  country  to  overpay,  the  courtiers  noticed  that  George  the 
Third  performed  his  part  in  the  ceremony  with  an  ungracious 
reluctance  which  indicated  that  forty  years  had  not  obliterated 
the  memories  of  the  great  crisis  of  January,  1770. 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  207 

Having  yielded  to  the  flattering  violence  which  he  had  wan- 
torfly  courted,  Yorke  left  the  palace  undone.  The  Jane  Shore 
of  politics,  his  frailty  aroused  no  harsher  sentiment  than  com- 
passion in  those  who,  men  themselves,  could  make  allowance 
for  his  feminine  nature.  But  the  consternation  with  which 
Lord  Hardwicke,  who  had  spent  the  morning,  by  his  express 
desire,  in  telling  everybody  that  he  had  declined  the  seal,  re- 
ceived the  announcement  that  he  had  accepted  it,  did  more 
than  could  have  been  done  by  the  most  poignant  reproaches 
to  disclose  to  him  the  aspect  which  his  conduct  must  present 
to  all  whose  good  opinion  he  treasured.  He  foresaw  what 
Barre  would  say,  what  Burke  would  write,  and  what  Savile 
would  feel,  when  a  brother  who  had  always  evinced  a  more 
than  fraternal  interest  in  his  career,  and  who  was  conversant 
enough  with  established  proprieties  to  know  the  gravity  of 
the  advice  that  he  was  giving,  adjured  him  to  return  forth- 
with to  St.  James's  and  entreat  his  Majesty  to  release  him 
from  an  engagement  which  he  ought  never  to  have  under- 
taken. But  such  an  effort  was  far  beyond  Charles  Yorke's 
courage.  He  could  not,  he  said,  retract.  His  honor  was  con- 
cerned. He  had  given  his  word,  and  the  king  had  wished 
him  joy.  Forbearing  to  remind  him  that,  according  to  the 
law  of  honor,  promises  rank  by  their  priority  in  time,  and  ndt 
by  the  station  of  those  to  whom  they  have  been  made,  Lord 
Hardwicke,  now  that  the  step  was  irrevocable,  did  his  best  to 
raise  his  brother's  spirits  and  calm  his  increasing  agitation. 
But  a  hearty  quarrel  would  have  been  less  terrible  to  Charles 
Yorke  than  the  tenderness  and  assiduity  by  which  the  mem- 
bers of  a  family  whose  idol  he  had  always  been  endeavored 
to  conceal  from  him  that  he  had  changed  their  pride  to  shame. 
It  was  useless  to  appeal  from  his  true  friends  to  his  new  con- 
federates in  search  of  the  admiring  and  unquestioning  affec- 
tion without  wThich  life  was  unendurable  to  him.  Grafton 
sympathized  wTith  him  as  an  unlucky  climber  who  is  sliding 
over  a  precipice  sympathizes  with  the  last  piece  of  turf  at 
which  he  clutches.  The  Bedfords  applauded  him  as  the  one 
wise  fellow  among  a  party  of  saints  and  fools,  and  were  in- 
clined to  envy  him  the  facility  of  his  ghastly  triumph.     To 


208  THE   EARLY    HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VI. 

Lord  Holland  his  fate  was  only  the  matter  for  a  heartless  jest, 
and  a  text  for  one  of  his  heart-felt  but  selfish  sermons  on  his 
own  sorrows.1 

The  protracted  agony  of  the  struggle  had  thrown  Charles 
Yorke  into  a  high  fever,  both  of  mind  and  body.  Mr.  John 
Yorke,  who,  though  able  and  cultivated,  and  in  Parliament  as 
a  thing  of  course,  had  sunk  his  own  ambition  in  order  to  push 
the  success  of  a  brother  whom  he  worshipped,  took  turns  with 
Lord  Hardwicke  in  keeping  the  sufferer  company.  Touched 
by  his  kindness,  and  encouraged  by  the  recollection  of  his 
life-long  devotion,  the  chancellor  proposed  to  him  to  follow 
his  own  example  and  accept  an  office  in  the  Admiralty.  John 
Yorke  gently  put  aside  the  offer;  but  no  delicacy  could  dis- 
guise the  motives  of  his  refusal,  and  Charles,  whose  melan- 
choly had  been  lightened  by  a  gleam  of  hope,  said  gloomily 
that  since  his  brother  threw  him  over  he  was  a  ruined  man. 
From  that  instant  he  turned  his  face  to  the  wall.  Wednesday, 
the  seventeenth  of  January,  was  the  day  on  which  he  grasped 
the  prize  that  crowned  the  labors,  the  struggles,  and  the  in- 
trigues of  a  lifetime.  On  Friday  he  took  to  his  bed,  and  by 
the  evening  his  family  had  reasons  for  dreading  the  worst, 
wrhatever  those  reasons  were.2     When  he  was  asked  whether 


1  "  I  never  envied  Mr.  Yorke  while  he  lived,"  wrote  Lord  Holland  to 
George  Selwyn ;  "  but  I  must  take  leave  to  envy  him,  and  everybody  else, 
when  they  are  dead.  I  comfort  by  persuading  myself  it  is  happier  to  wish 
for  death  than  to  dread  it;  and  I  believe  everybody  of  my  age  does  one 
or  the  other.  But  I  do  not  find  myself  near  a  natural  death,  nor  will  you 
see  me  hanged,  though  I  verily  think  they  will  never  leave  off  abusing 
me."  "  Yorke,"  he  says  at  a  subsequent  date,  "  was  very  ugly  while  he 
lived.  How  did  he  look  when  he  was  dead  ?"  Most  of  these  letters  of 
Lord  Holland  contain  an  allusion  to  the  morbid  fondness  for  death,  es- 
pecially in  its  more  sensational  forms,  by  which  Selwyn  is  now  chiefly  re- 
membered. His  interest  in  dead  men  and  his  indifference  to  living  women 
were  inexhaustible  topics  for  the  audacious  raillery  of  his  cronies. 

2  "I  can  only  tell  your  lordship,"  wrote  Lord  Hardwicke  to  Lord 
Rockingham  on  the  Friday,  "that  my  dear  and  unhappy  brother  is 
much  worse,  and  that  I  tremble  for  the  event.  God  send  me  and  his 
family  strength  enough  to  bear  against  this  too  probable  calamity.  I 
abominate  the  Court  politics,  and  almost  those  of  every  sort.     My  poor 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  209 

tlie  great  seal,  which  lay  in  his  chamber,  should  be  affixed  to 
the  patent  of  his  new  peerage,  he  collected  himself  enough  to 
express  a  hope  that  he  was  no  longer  guardian  of  the  bauble 
which  eight-and-forty  hours  before  he  had  bought  at  such  a 
price.  On  the  Saturday  morning  an  apparent  change  in  his 
condition  slightly  reassured  his  friends;  but  he  did  not  sur- 
vive the  week.  Into  the  precise  manner  of  his  death  history, 
which  has  been  deservedly  indulgent  to  him,  has  forborne 
curiously  to  inquire.  It  is  enough  that  he  could  not  endure 
the  shame  of  having  stooped  to  that  which  for  two  genera- 
tions after  him  was  clone  with  unabashed  front  by  some  of  the 
most  celebrated  statesmen  whose  names  are  inscribed  on  the 
roll  of  our  chancellors. 

^Nothing  was  now  left  for  the  Duke  of  Grafton  but  to  get 
himself  out  of  the  way  before  Junius  had  time  to  point  the 
moral  of  the  tragedy.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  continue 
prime-minister  after  the  most  ambitious  lawyer  at  the  bar  had 
thought  death  a  less  evil  than  the  disgrace  of  being  his  chan- 
cellor. The  government,  which,  like  a  snowball,  had  been 
changing  its  composition  as  it  was  kicked  along,  was  now  dis- 
solving fast  beneath  the  breath  of  Chatham.  Seven  places 
were  already  vacant ;  and  now  Conway,  who  had  of  late  been 
acting  as  an  unpaid  member  of  the  cabinet,  intimated  that 
though  he  had  been  willing  to  attend  as  long  as  he  sat  be- 
tween Camden  and  Granby,  he  would  not  undertake  to  pro- 
vide respectability  for  the  whole  administration.  Lord  Wey- 
mouth and  Lord  Gower  eagerly  assured  Grafton  that,  desert 
him  who  might,  they  would  stand  by  him  to  the  last;  but  he 
more  than  suspected  that  the  crew  of  three-bottle  men  who 
had  been  sailing  under  his  nominal  command  from  one  dubi- 
ous adventure  to  another  were  already  on  the  lookout  for  a 
more  capable  and  less  discredited  captain  with  whom  they 
might  pursue  during  a  renewed  term  of  service  their  jovial 


brother's  entanglement  was  such  as  history  can  hardly  parallel/'  "  Oh, 
my  unhappy  brother !"  he  says  on  the  Sunday.  "  Born  (one  hoped)  to  a 
most  prosperous  scene  of  life,  and  qualified  to  shine  in  it,  had  he  lived  in 
such  times  as  his  father  did,  or  indeed  in  any  not  so  disturbed  as  these." 

14 


i 


210  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VI. 

and  lucrative  trade  of  political  freebooters.  Sick  of  his  follow- 
ers, and  heartily  disgusted  with  himself,  he  resigned  an  office 
to  which  he  would  under  no  circumstances  have  been  equal, 
and  into  which  he  had  been  thrust  before  his  character,  which 
developed  late,  had  acquired  the  dignity  and  solidity  which 
came  after  his  day  of  grace  had  passed.  His  conduct  in  com- 
ing years  was  such  as  to  regain  for  him  the  esteem  of  the 
few;  but  he  had  not  the  native  force  to  make  his  repentance 
and  reformation  so  conspicuous  as  to  redeem  his  credit  with 
the  many.  The  time  was  not  very  far  distant  when,  as  the 
subordinate  member  of  a  cabinet,  he  took  a  course  which,  if 
he  had  never  been  prime-minister,  would  have  established  his 
reputation  for  foresight  and  patriotism ;  but  the  public  at 
large,  after  paying  him  a  momentary  tribute  of  surprised  ap- 
probation, soon  relapsed  into  its  former  mental  attitude,  and 
remembered  him  once  again  as  he  had  appeared  beneath  the 
fierce  light  that  beats  upon  the  Treasury.  The  portrait  which 
had  been  bitten  into  the  national  memory  by  the  acid  of  Ju- 
nius has  never  been  obliterated.  Thirty  years  after  the  duke 
had  fallen  from  power,  a  friendly  writer,  wTho  wTas  his  country 
neighbor,  could  not  venture  to  record  the  thoughtful  generos- 
ity by  which  he  rescued  the  author  of  the  "  Farmer's  Boy  " 
from  laborious  penury  without  an  elaborate  apology  for  prais- 
ing one  who  was  known  almost  exclusively  as  the  object  of 
the  most  famous  diatribes  in  our  language.  A  popular  concep- 
tion which  has  lasted  for  a  generation  is  likely  to  last  for  a 
century;  and  when  it  has  outlived  a  century,  it  may  die,  but 
it  cannot  be  corrected.  Doing  penance  for  the  accumulated 
sins  and  scandals  of  his  colleagues,  Grafton,  wThile  English  is 
read,  will  continue  to  stand  in  his  white  sheet  beneath  the 
very  centre  of  the  dome  in  the  temple  of  history. 

The  king  and  his  system,  in  this  their  dire  peril,  had  the 
good  wishes  of  one  who  was  then  the  most  famous  among  liv- 
ing political  philosophers.  As  long  as  Grafton's  resignation 
appeared  to  threaten  the  collapse  of  the  royal  policy,  David 
Hume  never  knew  a  moment's  peace.  He  saw  in  George  the 
Third  a  representative  of  the  autocratic  principles  of  which 
he  himself  was  the  most  attractive  exponent,  and  the  taskmas- 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  211 

ter  of  a  people  whom  lie  loved  as  little  as  Nelson  loved  the 
French.  Hume  had  suffered  cruelly  under  the  furious  out- 
break of  prejudice  against  everything  that  was  Scotch,  by 
which  Southern  patriotism  avenged  itself  on  Bute.  A  true 
artist,  he  kept  out  of  his  printed  books  all  ungraceful  and  ob- 
trusive manifestations  of  his  dislike  for  England  and  the  Eng- 
lish ;  but  many  a  passage  in  his  private  correspondence  shows 
how  deeply  the  iron  had  entered  into  his  soul.  "  From  what 
human  consideration,"  he  asks  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  "  can  I  pre- 
fer living  in  England  than  in  foreign  countries?  Can  you  se- 
riousty  talk  of  my  continuing  an  Englishman  ?  Am  I,  or  are 
you,  an  Englishman  ?  Do  they  not  treat  with  derision  our 
pretensions  to  that  name,  and  with  hatred  our  just  pretensions 
to  surpass  and  govern  them  V'1  The  intimate  connection  be- 
tween Hume's  constitutional  theories  and  his  sentiments  with 
regard  to  the  nation  at  whose  expense  the  Charleses  and  the 
Jameses  had  put  those  theories  in  practice  comes  out  strongly 
in  the  letters  which  he  wrote  during  February,  1770.  There 
was  little  fun,  and  that  little  very  grim,  in  the  remonstrance 
which  he  addressed  to  Adam  Smith,  who  had  gone  south  to 
make  his  bargain  for  the  "  Wealth  of  Nations  "  with  a  London 
publisher.  What  was  the  use,  cried  Hume,  of  wasting  a  book 
full  of  reason,  sense,  and  learning  upon  a  tribe  of  wicked  and 
abandoned  madmen  %  "  Nothing  but  a  rebellion  and  blood- 
shed will  open  the  eyes  of  that  deluded  people ;  though,  were 
they  alone  concerned,  I  think  it  is  no  matter  what  becomes 
of  them."     "  Our  government,"  he  wrote  in  the  same  month, 


1  This  letter  was  written  in  September,  17G4.  Two  years  afterwards, 
when  Smollett  made  the  tour  which  is  commemorated  under  a  thin  dis- 
guise in  "  Humphry  Clinker,"  he  found  all  the  inn  windows,  from  Doncaster 
northwards,  still  scrawled  with  doggerel  rhymes  in  abuse  of  the  Scotch 
nation.  In  1765,  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot  made  a  vigorous  protest  in  Parliament 
against  the  international  jealousy  which  had  survived  the  Union,  and  de- 
clared that  in  his  opinion  Englishman  and  Scot  were  one.  If  he  himself, 
he  said,  had  merit  enough,  he  should  pretend  to  any  English  place.  It 
certainly  would  have  been  difficult  for  him  just  then  to  have  hit  upon 
any  illustration  less  calculated  to  recommend  his  sentiments  to  the  audi- 
ence which  he  was  addressing. 


212  THE   EAKLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VI. 


"  lias  become  a  chimera,  and  is  too  perfect  in  point  of  liberty 
for  so  rude  a  beast  as  an  Englishman,  who  is  a  man  (a  bad 
animal  too)  corrupted  by  above  a  century  of  licentiousness.  I 
am  running  over  again  the  last  edition  of  my  '  History,'  in  or- 
der to  correct  it  still  further.  I  either  soften  or  expunge  many 
villanous,  seditious  Whig  strokes  which  had  crept  into  it.  I 
am  sensible  that  the  first  editions  were  too  full  of  those  fool- 
ish English  prejudices  which  all  nations  and  all  ages  disavow." 
"The  firm  conduct"  of  George  the  Third,  and  his  "manly 
resentment "  against  subjects  who  were  loath  to  surrender  that 
freedom  of  parliamentary  election  which  even  the  Stuarts  did 
not  contest,  sent  the  historian  to  his  proof-sheets  fired  by  the 
conviction  that  he  had  not  yet  done  enough  to  magnify  Straf- 
ford, to  canonize  Laud,  and  to  whitewash  Jeffreys. 

After  the  fall  of  Grafton,  Lord  North  became  prime-min- 
ister ;  if  a  designation  may  be  applied  to  him  which  he  never 
allowed  to  be  used  in  his  own  family,  on  the  theory  that  no 
such  office  existed  in  the  British  Constitution.  And,  most 
assuredly,  he  had  little  claim  to  any  title  that  conveyed  an 
idea  of  predominance ;  for  he  consented  to  place  his  indolent 
conscience  and  his  excellent  judgment  without  reserves  or 
conditions  in  the  hands  of  his  sovereign.  Adopting  the  royal 
views  with  a  lazy  docility,  which,  as  his  private  correspondence 
proves,  was  sometimes  hardly  short  of  inexcusable  dishonesty, 
he  never  hesitated  about  taking  the  royal  road  to  a  parliament- 
ary majority.  Submission  in  the  closet  and  corruption  in  the 
Commons  were  the  watchwords  of  his  disastrous  and  inglo- 
rious administration.  Having  obeyed  where  it  was  his  duty 
to  have  protested,  he  had  no  resource  but  to  bribe  where  it 
was  impossible  that  he  should  ever  convince.  Idle  and  inat- 
tentive in  all  other  departments  of  public  business,  he  was 
vigilant  and  indefatigable  in  buying  every  borough,  patron 
of  a  borough,  and  occupant  of  a  borough  that  was  in  the  mar- 
ket;  and  he  had  plenty  of  ready  wit  and  handy  logic  for 
those  occasions  when  it  became  necessary  to  give  his  support- 
ers a  justification  for  voting  according  to  the  promptings  of 
their  pocket.1     When  his  measures  were  so  faulty  or  the  re- 

1  Fox,  who,  with  all  his  good-nature,  was  too  much  a  born  critic  to 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  213 

suits  of  his  policy  so  glaringly  calamitous  that  the  comments 
and  expostulations  of  the  Opposition  could  not  be  stifled  by 
the  uproar  of  his  hired  claque,  he  would  step  on  to  the  floor 
with  the  air  of  a  popular  stage-manager  who  makes  jokes  in 
order  to  gain  time  and  pacify  the  audience  when  something 
has  gone  hopelessly  wrong  behind  the  curtain.  Speaking  with 
unscrupulous  tact  and  imperturbable  temper,  he  seldom  sat 
down  without  leaving  on  the  minds  of  his  followers  a  com- 
fortable sense  of  confidence  in  a  statesman  who  could  see  the 
humorous  side  of  a  defeat  or  a  deficit;  and  whose  slumbers 
on  the  Treasury  bench  were  only  deepened  and  sweetened  by 
the  news  that  England  had  a  province  the  less  or  an  enemy 
the  more,  or  that  a  village  full  of  people  who  a  few  years  be- 
fore were  loyal  subjects  of  the  king  had  perished  beneath  the 
torches  and  tomahawks  of  savages  hired  witli  the  produce  of  a 
loan  in  whose  profits  half  the  cabinet  had  gone  shares  with 
the  most  favored  of  their  supporters. 

Lord  North's  first  business  was  to  reconstruct  the  adminis- 
tration. The  influence  of  Chatham,  acting  on  noble  natures 
as  silently  and  irresistibly  as  magnet  upon  steel,  drew  to  it- 
self all  the  sterling  metal  which  still  lurked  in  any  corner  of 
the  official  fabric.  Lord  Howe  refused  to  stay  any  longer  in 
a  government  condemned  by  the  statesman  under  whose  in- 
spiration he  had  outdone  himself  in  valor  and  conduct  both 
by  sea  and  land.  Dunning  went ;  and  James  Grenville,  the 
most  agreeable,  if  the  least  eminent,  of  the  brothers.1  Lord 
Cornwallis  had  ridden  as  Granby's  aide-de-camp  at  Minden, 
and  was  not  going  to  desert  him  now.  Their  places  were  sup- 
plied by  professional  office-holders,  who  received  from  Buck- 
ingham House  detailed  instructions  when  and  how  they  were 
to  speak,  and  on  which  side  they  were  to  go  on  voting  until 

over-praise,  when  regaling  Samuel  Rogers  with  a  general  review  of  the 
oratory  of  his  day,  pronounced  Lord  North  to  be  "  a  consummate  de- 
bater." 

1  "  The  day  before  yesterday,"  wrote  George  Grenville  from  Stowe,  "  we 
wTere  surprised  by  the  laughing  and  laughter-promoting  Jemmy."  Those 
pleasant  epithets  were  certainly  the  last  which  could  be  applied  to  George 
Grenville  himself. 


214  THE   EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

further  orders.1  The  great  seal,  at  which,  since  Yorke's  death, 
all  prudent  lawyers  more  than  ever  looked  askance,  was  in- 
trusted to  three  commissioners,  who  had  not  between  them 
enough  knowledge  of  equity  to  qualify  for  a  taxing  -  mas- 
ter in  Chancery,  but  whose  number  and  insignificance  di- 
luted the  unpopularity  which  would  have  been  fatal  to  any 
single  aspirant  who  should  have  posed  as  the  equivalent  of 
Camden.  The  privy  seal  went  a-begging  until  Lord  North, 
who  had  the  courage  of  sloth  in  as  large  a  measure  as  his 
royal  master  had  the  courage  of  energy,  defied  the  Wilkites 
by  bestowing  it  on  his  uncle,  the  Earl  of  Halifax,  who,  not 
three  months  before,  had  been  cast  in  damages  for  having 
broken  the  law  in  his  eagerness  to  persecute  their  hero.        * 

To  say  that  Halifax  had  ruined  his  estate  by  extravagance 
and  his  constitution  by  strong  liquor  is  to  say  that  he  had 
lived  like  every  one  of  North's  colleagues  who  attained  to 
mediocrity.  George  the  Third  had  now  reached  the  platform 
towards  which  he  had  so  long  been  struggling,  and  stood 
there,  in  his  own  estimation,  every  inch  a  king.  He  had  a 
prime-minister  clever  enough  to  do  him  credit  as  a  spokes- 
man, and  so  thick-skinned  as  to  be  invaluable  for  a  whipping- 
boy  ;  a  cabinet  containing  two  or  three  respectabilities  with- 
out a  will  of  their  own,  and  three  or  four  broken-down  men 
of  fashion  who  could  not  afford  to  throw  away  a  quarter's 
salary ;  and  a  House  of  Commons  which  lent  itself  kindly  to 
the  process  of  parliamentary  manipulation,  the  only  one  among 
all  the  branches  of  statecraft  which  the  servants  of  his  choice 

«  On  the  ninth  of  January,  George  the  Third  desired  Lord  North  to 
press  a  member  who,  with  some  others,  had,  in  his  Majesty's  opinion,  taken 
things  too  easily  during  the  previous  session  to  exert  himself  in  the 
coming  debate  ;  "  and  I  have  no  objection,"  said  the  king,  "  to  your  add- 
ing that  I  have  particularly  directed  you  to  speak  to  them  on  this  occa- 
sion." On  the  thirty-first  of  the  month  this  gentleman  got  an  oppor- 
tunity to  make  his  tirade,  and  inveighed  hotly  against  the  party  which 
was  defending  the  freedom  of  election  as  a  combination  whose  object 
was  to  destroy  the  monarchy  and  abolish  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
next  morning  the  king  signified  to  Lord  North  that  he  was  satisfied  with 
the  performance  ;  and,  before  the  week  was  out,  the  obedient  orator  had 
been  rewarded  with  a  good  place  in  the  new  administration. 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  215 

thoroughly  understood.  Keeping  up  the  constitutional  fiction 
that  the  king  acquiesced  in  a  vicious  policy  out  of  his  affec- 
tion for  worthless  ministers,  and  dutifully  pretending  to  be 
ignorant  that  he  put  up  with  worthless  ministers  because  none 
but  they  would  consent  to  be  the  instruments  of  a  vicious  pol- 
icy, Junius  implored  him  to  ask  himself  whether  it  was  for 
his  interest  or  his  honor  to  live  in  perpetual  disagreement 
with  his  people  "  merely  to  preserve  such  a  chain  of  beings 
as  North,  Barrington,  Weymouth,  Gower,  Ellis,  Onslow,  Eig- 
by,  Jerry  Dyson,  and  Sandwich,"  whose  very  names  were  a 
satire  upon  all  government,  and  formed  a  catalogue  which 
the  gravest  of  the  royal  chaplains  could  not  school  his  voice 
to  read  without  laughing.  After  a  lapse  of  sixteen  years  the 
strictures  of  Junius  were  repeated  by  a  far  greater  writer,  in 
a  "Birthday  Ode"  which  has  survived  all  the  official  verse 
that  was  laid  at  the  foot  of  the  throne  from  the  first  effusion 
of  Eusden  to  the  last  of  Pye.  Having  discovered,  by  the  in- 
stinct of  his  own  genius,  the  art  of  infusing  the  spirit  of  poe- 
try into  the  transient  topics  of  the  newspaper — an  art  which 
Heine,  who  alone  among  moderns  possessed  it  to  equal  per- 
fection, confessed  that  he  borrowed  from  the  old  Greek  com- 
edy— Burns  traced  the  prostration  of  Britain  and  the  loss  of 
her  colonies  to  her  sovereign's  propensity  for  committing  the 
honor  and  welfare  of  the  State  to  adventurers  with  a  charac- 
ter which  would  not  have  got  them  a  place  in  a  decent  Low- 
land homestead.1    It  was  not  that  George  the  Third  had  any 

1  ''  Tis  very  true,  my  sovereign  king, 
My  skill  may  weel  be  doubted  ; 
But  facts  are  chiels  that  winna  ding, 

And  downa  be  disputed. 
Your  royal  nest,  beneath  your  wing, 

Is  e'en  right  reft  and  clouted  ; 
And  now  the  third  part  of  the  string, 
And  less,  will  gang  about  it 

Than  did  ae  day. 

"  Far  be't  frae  me  that  I  aspire 
To  blame  your  legislation, 
Or  say  ye  wisdom  want,  or  fire, 
To  rule  this  mighty  nation. 


l/ 


216  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VI. 

natural  affinity  for  looseness  of  conduct  or  obliquity  of  prin- 
ciple. He  knew  the  worth  of  an  honest  man  as  well  as  any 
farmer  on  the  Carrick  Border.  When  there  arose  a  question 
of  keeping  Lord  Hertford  in  the  embassy  at  Paris,  the  king 
observed  to  his  minister  that  a  respectable  man  must  not  be 
lightly  cast  aside,  since  he  was  not  so  fortunate  as  to  have  in 
his  employment  "  too  many  people  of  decent  and  orderly  be- 
havior." There  was  no  affectation  in  the  delight  which  he 
expressed  at  the  prospect  of  enlisting  in  the  cabinet  the  Earl 
of  Dartmouth,  who  brought  to  his  service  good  intentions 
strengthened  by  religious  convictions,  and  brought  nothing 
else.  But  the  work  that  he  gave  his  agents  to  do  was  of  such 
a  sort  that,  while  he  took  the  best  whom  he  could  obtain,  the 
best  were  very  bad.  Burke,  whose  glance  pierced  the  situa- 
tion through  and  through,  foresaw  that  the  king's  success 
would  be  only  the  prelude  to  an  entire  break-up  of  the  system 
of  personal  government.  "  The  Court,"  he  wrote,  "  perseveres 
in  the  pursuit,  and  is  near  to  the  accomplishment,  of  its  pur 
pose.  But  when  the  work  is  perfected,  it  may  be  nearest  to 
its  destruction  ;  for  the  principle  is  wrong,  and  the  materials 
are  rotten."  A  vivid  and  correct  imagination,  while  it  sees 
beneath  the  surface  of  processes,  almost  invariably  antedates 
results.1  Though  the  end  arrived  at  last,  it  was  slower  in 
coining  than  Burke  had  predicted.  For  twelve  successive 
years  the  country  continued  to  be  administered  in  exact  ac- 
cordance with  George  the  Third's  theory  of  an  ideal  constitu- 
tion ;  but  the  price  which  his  subjects  had  to  pay  was  too 

But,  faith  !  I  muckle  doubt,  my  sire, 

Ye've  trusted  ministration 
To  chaps  wha  in  a  barn  or  byre 

Wad  better  filled  their  station 

Than  courts  yon  day." 

1  The  distinguished  Frenchmen  with  whom  Mr.  Senior  conversed  at 
Paris  between  1852  and  1860  were  very  acute  in  discerning  the  causes 
which  ultimately  brought  about  the  fall  of  Louis  Napoleon;  but  none  of 
them,  in  making  their  forecasts,  would  give  those  causes  time  to  work. 
The  more  sanguine  among  the  Orleanists  hardly  allowed  the  empire  four 
years  out  of  the  eighteen  which  were  its  allotted  portion. 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  217 

heavy  a  fee  even  for  so  complete  and  conclusive  a  course  of 
political  philosophy,  illustrated  by  practical  experiments. 

During  the  first  months  of  that  long  period  the  wheels  of 
the  ministerial  chariot  drove  heavily.  George  Grenville,  who 
knew  himself  to  be  dying,  and  whose  public  conscience  had 
been  reawakened  by  the  confidential  intercourse  which  he 
once  again  maintained  with  his  great  relative,  was  in  a  hurry 
to  employ  the  strength  and  time  that  remained  to  him  in  get- 
ting something  accomplished  which,  if  he  could  not  be  liked 
during  his  life,  would  cause  him  to  be  remembered  with  grat- 
itude after  it.  A  born  House  of  Commons  man,  if  ever  there 
was  one,  he  made  it  his  last  ambition  to  purify  the  only  at- 
mosphere which  he  had  ever  breathed  with  satisfaction.  The 
moral  degradation  of  that  assembly,  where  he  had  been  long 
the  proud  leader  and  always  the  contented  drudge,  aroused  in 
him  one  of  those  tempests  of  indignation  to  which  the  gravest 
English  statesmen,  fortunately  for  their  country,  are  occasion- 
ally liable,  and  which  by  their  beneficent  violence  have  cleared 
the  ground  for  some  of  the  best  laws  that  grace  our  Statute- 
book.  He  introduced  a  bill  constituting  a  select  and  respon- 
sible tribunal  for  the  trial  of  election  petitions,  which  hitherto 
had  been  decided  in  a  committee  of  the  whole  House,  with  as 
much  regard  to  justice  as  could  be  expected  from  a  court 
where  the  most  scrupulous  man  could  not  but  be  biassed  by 
the  reflection  that  the  fate  of  the  ministry,  and  it  might  well 
be  of  the  nation,  depended  on  his  voting  with  his  party  against 
the  merits  of  the  cause — a  court  whose  numbers  were  elastic ; 
whose  members  might  come  and  go  at  pleasure ;  which  was 
thin  to  hear  evidence,  and  full  to  pronounce  sentence ;  and  to 
which  nineteen  out  of  twenty  among  the  judges  brought 
either  a  mind  made  up,  or  a  verdict  to  be  sold  for  love  or 
money.1     Grenville  was  heard  throughout  his  clear  and  in- 


1  The  ladies,  by  ancient  custom,  always  attended  the  trial  of  a  petition 
in  crowds,  or,  as  an  ungallant  peer  complained,  in  droves ;  and  the  mem- 
ber whose  fate  was  at  stake  found  it  necessary  to  borrow  from  his  friends, 
if  lie  had  not  enough  pretty  sisters  and  cousins  of  his  own.  So  much  in 
earnest  were  the  queens  of  beauty  of  these  indecorous  political  tourna- 


218  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

structive  statement  of  the  abuses  that  lie  deplored,  and  the 
remedy  that  he  had  devised,  with  a  respectful  interest  which 
passed  into  willing  and  almost  unanimous  conviction  as  he 
concluded  in  a  strain  of  genuine  feeling  that  lent  a  touch  of 
pathos  to  the  close  of  his  stern  and  unlovely  career.  The 
hearers  whom  he  had  lectured  and  wearied  for  thirty  years 
were  astonished,  and  even  awed,  when  he  entreated  them  to 
console  his  days,  now  fast  running  out,  with  the  thought  that 
he  had  contributed,  in  however  small  a  degree,  to  the  improve- 
ment of  the  House  of  Commons — "a  house,"  he  said,  "for 
which  I  have  that  established  affection  that  induces  a  man  to 
die  for  the  honor  of  the  ship  he  is  engaged  in."  When  the 
principle  of  a  bill  which  George  Grenville  had  drafted  was 

incnts  that  on  one  occasion  when  the  Speaker  ordered  strangers  to  with- 
draw, it  took  the  doorkeepers,  two  hours  to  clear  the  gallery.  Of  all 
Grenville's  arguments  against  the  existing  system,  none  told  more  than 
his  description  of  the  manner  in  which  honorable  gentlemen,  forgetting 
that  they  ought  to  be  giving  their  attention  as  closely  as  jurymen  who 
would  have  no  judge  to  direct  them,  absented  themselves  in  pairs  from 
the  hearing  of  the  case  during  the  hours  required  for  the  carouse  which 
then  was  called  a  dinner.  And  yet  they  were  just  as  well  away ;  for  they 
could  not  afford  to  listen  as  men  oi)en  to  conviction  when,  as  not  unfre- 
quently  happened,  the  confirming  or  invalidating  of  an  election  became 
a  stand-and-fall  question.  Sir  Robert  Walpole  went  out  because  the 
members  of  Parliament  who  had  taken  bribes  from  himself  to  vote  that 
the  burgesses  of  Chippenham  had  been  bought  were  less  numerous 
by  one  than  the  members  who  hoped  to  get  pensions  and  places  from  his 
successor  by  voting  that  those  burgesses  were  pure.  Camden,  as  a  young 
lawyer,  had  been  counsel  for  the  petitioners,  and  his  professional  con- 
science was  hurt  by  the  congratulations  which  he  received  on  having 
given  the  death-blow  to  the  great  minister ;  "  a  compliment,"  he  said, 
"  which  I  don't  desire,  but  am  content  with  having  served  my  clients 
faithfully."  Even  exceptionally  high-minded  men  were  not  ashamed  of 
allowing  that  they  had  voted  about  an  election  on  party  grounds ;  and 
an  appeal  to  any  other  motive  would  have  been  scouted  by  the  lower 
class  of  parliamentary  tacticians  as  claptrap.  When  Lord  Clive  was  un- 
seated for  St.  Michael's,  Rigby  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  analyzing 
and  commenting  on  the  division.  "We  were  defeated,"  he  says,  "  by  the 
Tories  going  against  us.  The  numbers  were  two  hundred  and  seven 
against  one  hundred  and  eighty-three.  I  hope  your  Grace,  nor  none  of 
your  friends,  will  have  mercy  on  those  rascally  Tories  any  more." 


1770.J  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  219 

approved,  its  details  might  safely  be  taken  on  trust.  Recom- 
mended by  his  authority,  the  measure  went  smoothly  and  rap- 
idly through  all  its  stages;  and  the  grosser  scandals  which 
disgraced,  our  elections  began  steadily,  though  slowly,  to  abate 
from  the  day  when  the  jurisdiction  of  a  parliamentary  com- 
mittee became  a  terror  to  evil-doers,  instead  of  a  machinery 
which  the  party  in  power  ruthlessly  worked  for  the  purpose 
of  increasing  its  own  majority. 

Grenville,  who  in  his  worst  days  had  never  been  a  hypo- 
crite or  a  coward,  did  not  deceive  himself,  and  had  no  inten- 
tion of  flattering  his  brother-members  with  the  pretence  that 
bribery,  so  rife  in  the  constituencies,  was  unknown  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  He  was  not  one  of  those  who  do  either 
good  or  ill  by  halves.  Striking  right  and  left  among  the  heads 
of  the  hydra,  he  had  hardly  sat  down,  after  calling  attention 
to  the  method  of  trying  election  petitions,  when  he  rose  once 
more  to  move  for  an  inquiry  into  the  expenditure  of  the  Civil 
List.  The  unexpected  proposal  struck  consternation  far  and 
wide.  Ministers  who  could  not  have  kept  their  places  for  a 
day  unless  they  had  the  king's  purse  as  well  as  the  king's  fa- 
vor to  rely  on,  and  ministerial  supporters  who,  but  for  timely 
subsidies  from  the  royal  strong-box,  must  have  exchanged  the 
costly  delights  of  Arthur's  and  of  Ascot  for  the  dull  economy 
of  their  country-houses,  felt  their  hearts  low  within  them 
when  an  ex-first  lord  who  knew  every  secret  of  the  Treasury, 
and  whose  failing  health  excluded  him  from  that  prospect  of 
a  return  to  office  which  is  so  potent  to  mitigate  the  reforming 
zeal  of  an  opposition,  came  forward  in  the  character  of  a  finan- 
cial inquisitor.  How  was  it,  asked  Grenville,  that  the  late 
king,  spending  like  a  king,  could  pay  his  way  and  leave  a  hun- 
dred and  seventy  thousand  pounds  as  a  nest-egg  for  his  suc- 
cessor, while  his  present  Majesty,  though  practising  a  personal 
frugality  that  would  be  most  laudable  if  the  tax-payer  had 
benefited  by  it,  had  already,  in  the  tenth  year  of  his  reign, 
been  reduced  to  apply  to  Parliament  for  the  means  of  dis- 
charging a  debt  of  half  a  million  ?  The  question  was  an- 
swered by  Barre,  who  said,  in  plain  English,  that  the  money 
which  the  nation  supplied  to  its  sovereign  in  the  loyal  hope 


220  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VI. 

that  he  would  employ  it  to  gratify  his  private  tastes  and 
maintain  his  regal  state  had  gone  in  debauching  the  House 
of  Commons.  But  the  frightful  misfortunes  arising  from  the 
subservience  of  Parliament  and  the  clandestine  profusion  of 
the  Crown,  which  ten  years  afterwards  strengthened  the  arm 
of  Burke  and  gave  an  edge  to  his  weapon,  had  not  as  yet 
reached  their  climax ;  and  the  honor  of  storming  the  strong- 
hold of  corruption  was  reserved  for  a  knight  whose  own  shield 
was  stainless.  Lord  North,  an  adept  in  all  the  more  shallow 
and  showy  arts  of  parliamentary  leadership,  parried  the  attack 
by  congratulating  Grenville  on  having  taken  so  kindly  to  the 
trade  of  an  apostle  of  purity,  for  which  his  previous  life  had 
been  but  a  queer  apprenticeship ;  and  when  other  members, 
whose  antecedents  were  such  that  their  mouths  could  not  be 
closed  by  an  epigram,  pressed  the  prime-minister  for  a  more 
courteous  and  adequate  explanation,  the  dependents  of  the 
government  drowned  any  further  discussion  by  clamoring 
like  a  chorus  of  foxhounds  who  suspect  that  somebody  has 
designs  upon  their  porridge. 

But  there  was  one  voice  which  they  could  not  silence.  De- 
termined that,  listen  who  would,  the  truth  should  be  spoken, 
Chatham  renewed  in  the  Lords  the  motion  that  had  been 
dropped  in  the  Commons,  and  mercilessly  exposed  the  arti- 
fices of  ministers,  who,  by  bribing  lavishly  out  of  the  resources 
of  the  Civil  List,  and  then  challenging  Parliament,  on  its  loy- 
alty, to  pay  the  king's  debts  and  ask  no  questions,  obtained  an 
unlimited  power  of  drawing  upon  the  nation  for  funds  where- 
with to  suborn  the  national  representatives.  The  jackals  of 
the  Treasury  soon  found  an  opportunity  for  demanding  that 
his  words  should  be  taken  down  ;  but  to  take  down  Chatham's 
words  was  like  binding  over  Cromwell  to  keep  the  peace  on 
the  morning  of  Naseby.  Supremely  careless  whether  or  not 
the  clerks  at  the  table  entered  on  the  journals  of  the  House 
phrases  which,  as  he  uttered  them,  took  rank  at  once  in  the 
literature  of  his  country,  he  plainly  and  boldly  declared  that 
he,  for  one,  would  trust  no  sovereign  in  the  world  with  the 
means  of  buying  up  the  liberties  of  his  people.  In  a  time  of 
profound  peace  abroad,  when  no  delicate  negotiation  for  the 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  221 

purchase  of  State  secrets,  which  publicity  might  hamper,  was 
going  forward  at  Paris  or  Madrid  ;  with  a  virtuous  king,  who 
had  no  expensive  vices  to  nourish  and  conceal — what  reason, 
except  the  most  dishonorable  of  all,  could  exist  for  refusing  an 
inquiry  ?  How  had  his  Majesty  spent  the  money  which  had 
been  exacted  in  his  name?  "Was  it  in  building  palaces  worthy 
of  his  position  among  monarchs ;  in  encouraging  the  liberal 
and  useful  arts ;  in  rewarding  veterans  who,  after  defending 
his  quarrel  in  many  a  rough  campaign,  were  starving  on  pen- 
sions which  the  upper  servants  of  a  nobleman  would  despise 
as  wages?  Or  was  it  not  rather  in  procuring  a  Parliament 
which,  like  a  packed  jury,  was  always  ready,  if  a  minister  was 
in  the  dock,  to  say  "not  guilty"  in  the  teeth  of  proof,  and 
with  absolute  indifference  to  consequences? 

This  grave  accusation,  which  Chatham  had  forcibly  but  not 
unfairly  put,  was  repeated  almost  immediately  by  those  who 
were  most  concerned  in  ascertaining  the  truth  of  it.  The  peo- 
ple could  not  endure  the  thought  that  their  House  of  Com- 
mons, a  traditional  pride  in  which  was  interwoven  in  every 
fibre  of  the  national  character,  should  have  degenerated  into 
a  body  the  majority  of  whose  members  were  guilty  of  such 
conduct  and  actuated  by  such  motives  that,  even  to  this  day, 
it  is  not  easy  to  name  individuals  among  them  for  fear  of 
giving  pain  to  their  worthier  descendants.1  The  inhabitants 
of  Westminster  and  London,  of  Middlesex  and  Surrey,  and 
all  that  constituted  the  district  which  then  was  the  heart  and 
brain  of  England,  had  long  ago  petitioned  the  king  to  dissolve 
Parliament,  and  leave  it  for  the  country  to  pronounce  between 


1  As  early  as  1768  an  incident  occurred  which  showed  what  the  public 
thought  of  its  representatives,  and  what  those  representatives  thought  of 
themselves.  One  Thornton,  a  milk-seller,  was  at  the  trouble  to  print  and 
placard  Bond  Street  with  the  speech  which  Oliver  Cromwell  made  when 
the  Long  Parliament  was  dissolved.  Though  not  a  word  of  comment 
was  prefixed  or  appended  to  the  text,  every  honorable  gentleman  who 
read  the  handbills,  as  soon  as  he  reached  the  sentence  beginning  "  Ye 
are  a  pack  of  mercenary  wretches,"  pronounced  it  a  libel  upon  the  as- 
sembly to  which  he  belonged ;  and  Thornton  was  straightway  committed 
to  Newgate. 


222  THE  EARLY    HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

the  law  and  its  violators.  When  their  prayers  procured  them 
no  redress,  and,  as  they  complained,  scanty  civility,  their 
leaders  suggested  to  them  the  bold  and  novel  expedient  of 
approaching  the  throne  with  remonstrances  upon  the  answers 
which  had  been  returned  to  their  petitions.  The  City  led  the 
way  with  an  address  which  was  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  the 
famous  instrument  whence  its  title  was  borrowed,  and  the 
very  language  of  which  recalled  the  English  that  was  spoken 
and  written  in  the  best  days  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The 
authors  of  the  Grand  Eemonstrance  might  have  been  proud 
to  father  the  sentences  in  which  the  Liverymen  of  London 
rehearsed  how,  though  they  had  laid  their  wrongs  and  their 
desires  before  their  sovereign  with  the  humble  confidence  of 
dutiful  subjects,  their  complaints  still  remained  unanswered ; 
their  injuries  had  been  confirmed;  and  the  only  judge  re- 
movable at  the  pleasure  of  the  Crown  had  been  expelled  from 
his  high  office  for  defending  the  Constitution.  "  We  owe  to 
your  Majesty,"  the  petitioners  went  on  to  say,  "  an  obedience 
under  the  restriction  of  the  laws ;  and  your  Majesty  owes  to 
us  that  our  representation,  free  from  the  force  of  arms  or  cor- 
ruption, should  be  preserved  to  us  in  Parliament."  In  the 
reign  of  James  the  Second,  Englishmen  had  complained  that 
the  sitting  of  Parliament  was  interrupted  because  it  was  not 
corruptly  subservient  to  the  designs  of  the  king.  They  com- 
plained now  that  the  sitting  of  Parliament  was  not  interrupt- 
ed because  it  was  corruptly  subservient  to  the  designs  of  min- 
isters. And  therefore  his  Majesty's  remonstrants  assured 
themselves  that  his  Majesty  would  restore  peace  to  his  people 
by  dissolving  such  a  Parliament  and  removing  such  evil  min- 
isters forever  from  his  councils. 

Those  ministers,  naturally  enough,  would  have  been  pleased 
if  so  formidable  a  document  could  have  been  encountered 
with  the  conventional  reply,  and  consigned  to  the  summary 
oblivion,  which  are  the  predestined  fate  of  memorials  to  the 
Crown ;  but  the  sheriffs  of  London,  who  both  were  leading 
members  of  Parliament,  insisted  on  the  right,  which  the  City 
shared  with  the  two  universities  and  the  two  branches  of  the 
legislature,  of  approaching  the  king  in  person,  with  all  the 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  223 

train  and  state  of  royalty  about  him.  The  courtiers  were  thor- 
oughly frightened ;  and  the  cabinet  began  to  look  for  prece- 
dents which  might  permit  them  to  insist  that  the  corporation 
should  limit  the  numbers  of  the  deputation,  and  agree  to  be 
satisfied  with  a  private  reception.  But  George  the  Third,  who, 
with  the  obstinacy  which  endangers  dynasties,  was  endowed* 
with  the  calm  resolution  which  seldom  has  failed  to  save  them, 
would  not  let  his  honor  out  of  his  own  keeping,  and  an- 
nounced to  Lord  North  that,  however  it  might  have  been  in 
the  past,  the  present  occasion  wTas  one  on  which  he  did  not 
choose  to  shrink  from  an  interview  with  his  subjects.  On 
the  fourteenth  of  March  the  lord  mayor  and  the  sheriffs  came 
westward,  attended  by  an  immense  but  not  disorderly  multi- 
tude. The  king  received  them  seated  on  his  throne.  The 
common  sergeant  began  to  read  the  Remonstrance ;  but 
the  poor  man  had  over-estimated  his  own  courage  and  self- 
command  when  he  undertook  to  be  the  mouthpiece  of  such 
sentiments  in  such  a  presence,  and  he  was  fain  to  hand  over 
the  paper  to  the  town-clerk  long  before  he  came  to  the  con- 
cluding prayer  of  the  petition.  The  king  listened  with  pa- 
tience and  composure  to  the  uncourtly  doctrines  which  pierced 
through  the  courteous  phrases  in  which  they  were  thinly 
draped.1     He  knew  very  well,  as  Junius  said,  that  no  one  ex- 

1  Home  furnished  the  Public  Advertiser  with  an  account  of  the  presen- 
tation of  the  Remonstrance,  disfigured  by  such  vulgar  spite  and  dis- 
honesty as  to  throw  some  discredit  upon  the  party  which  he  espoused. 
With  much  reading,  but  less  culture  than  Wilkes,  and  far  less  mother- 
wit,  he  was  already  bent  on  outbidding  him  in  the  estimation  of  the 
populace.  "  When  his  Majesty  "  (so  Home  wrote)  "  had  done  reading 
his  speech,  the  lord  mayor  had  the  honor  of  kissing  his  Majesty's  hand; 
after  which  his  Majesty  instantly  turned  round  to  his  courtiers  and  burst 
out  a-laughing.  Nero  fiddled  while  Rome  was  burning."  The  Court  was 
so  ill-advised  as  to  proceed  against  the  printer  of  this  trash;  but  it  got 
no  satisfaction  except  an  apology  from  Home,  who  inserted  a  paragraph 
to  the  effect  that,  in  view  of  the  great  ofTence  which  he  had  given  by  an 
assertion  made  on  a  former  occasion,  he  frankly  withdrew  that  assertion, 
and  admitted  that  Nero  did  not  fiddle  when  Rome  was  burning.  Such 
were  the  unseemly  slights  to  which  the  king  exposed  the  royal  dignity  in 
his  attempt  to  make  it  more  imposing  than  his  grandfather  had  left  it. 


224  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VI. 

cept  a  gentleman  usher  would  think  it  a  season  for  compli- 
ments. But  the  petitioners  must  have  been  sanguine,  indeed, 
if  they  hoped  that  George  the  Third  would  be  either  enlight- 
ened or  alarmed  by  their  free  speaking.  He  dismissed  them 
with  a  round  reproof,  and  at  once  set  his  usual  apparatus  to 
work  in  order  to  procure  them  from  another  quarter  a  still 
severer  punishment  for  their  presumption. 

The  necessary  arrangements  were  soon  made  for  inciting 
Parliament  to  pass  resolutions  condemnatory  of  a  petition 
which,  whether  or  not  it  was,  as  the  king  had  pronounced  it 
in  his  reply,  disrespectful  to  the  Crown,  undoubtedly  could  not 
be  construed  in  the  light  of  a  compliment  to  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  task  of  calling  upon  that  House  to  reprobate 
the  audacity  of  those  who  had  prayed  the  king  to  dissolve  it 
as  corrupt  was,  with  exquisite  propriety,  intrusted  to  a  mem- 
ber who  had  hitherto  voted  with  the  Opposition  because  he 
wanted  nothing  for  himself,  and  who  now  voted  with  the 
government  because  he  wanted  something  for  his  brother. 
Exhilarated  by  finding  that  there  still  was  an  untrodden  cor- 
ner of  the  field  over  which  they  had  so  long  been  battling,  the 
ministerialists  rushed  to  arms.  At  first  there  appeared  to  pre- 
vail very  nearly  a  unanimity  of  unrighteous  indignation. 
Beckford,  the  lord  mayor,  Sheriff  Townsend,  and  Sheriff  Saw- 
bridge,  and  Trecothick,  who,  though  less  of  a  partisan  than  the 
other  Whig  representatives  of  the  City,  was  too  much  of  a 
man  to  desert  his  brother-aldermen  in  the  moment  of  adver- 
sity, rose  one  after  the  other  to  avow  and  to  justify  in  firm 
but  respectful  terms  the  share  they  had  taken  in  a  course  of 
action  which  was  almost  obligatory  on  a  corporation  that  had 
always  endeavored  to  deserve  its  own  special  liberties  and 
privileges  by  jealously  guarding  those  which  were  common  to 
Englishmen.  Their  protests  were  received  with  jeers  and  in- 
terruptions, unbecoming  as  directed  against  brother-senators; 
but  much  more  than  unbecoming  when  addressed  by  judges 
to  culprits  who  were  standing  upon  their  defence.  North, 
speaking,  as  the  reporter  commemorates,  "  in  a  very  high 
style,"  so  far  from  remonstrating  with  his  followers  for  treat- 
ing their  accused  colleagues  badly,  marvelled  at  their  lenity  in 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  225 

not  having  altogether  denied  a  hearing  to  people  whom  he 
called  agitators  and  hinted  at  as  bankrupts — an  insinuation 
which  wTas  pointless  when  aimed  at  men  any  one  of  whose 
names  would  have  been  worth  more  on  the  back  of  a  bill  than 
those  of  all  his  cabinet  together.  Inflamed  by  such  an  appeal 
to  their  evil  passions  from  the  minister  who  was  responsible 
for  the  prudence  of  their  resolves  and  the  decency  of  their 
proceedings,  honorable  gentlemen  were  ready  and  eager  to 
vote  by  acclamation  that  they  themselves  were  immaculate 
and  their  detractors  calumnious ;  but  there  were  those  among 
them  who  intended,  however  little  the  knowledge  might  affect 
its  decision,  that  at  all  events  the  House  should  know  what  it 
was  doing.  Burke  reminded  his  audience  that  they  were  now 
entering  upon  another  stage  of  the  downward  road ;  that,  after 
having  successfully  combated  the  right  of  election,  they  now 
were  on  the  verge  of  committing  themselves  to  a  campaign 
against  the  right  of  petition ;  and  that  with  such  a  prospect 
before  them,  the  least  observant  and  the  most  reckless  ought 
at  last  to  acknowledge  that  rulers  could  only  go  from  bad  to 
worse  so  long  as  they  persisted  in  doing  violence  to  the  senti- 
ments of  a  nation.  There  was  nothing  inglorious,  he  entreated 
them  to  remember,  in  yielding  to  the  people  of  England.  And 
when  the  ignoble  throng  which  professed  to  represent  that 
people  greeted  his  expostulations  with  the  noisy  impertinence 
from  which,  taking  his  career  as  a  whole,  he  suffered  in  pro- 
portion as  the  causes  which  he  advocated  were  wise  and  just, 
he  was  goaded  into  exclaiming,  in  much  the  same  words  as 
those  which  Chatham  had  used  the  day  before  in  another 
place,  that  while  a  man  would  be  roared  at  inside  the  House 
if  he  were  to  call  Parliament  corrupt,  he  would  be  ashamed  in 
any  private  company  whatsoever  to  maintain  the  paradox  that 
it  was  pure.  Burke,  though  brilliant  as  ever,  was  outshone  by 
Wedderburn,  who  during  that  spring  session  of  1770  made  a 
series  of  the  most  thoughtful,  and  certainly  the  most  impres- 
sive, speeches  that  ever  proceeded  from  lips  which  were  to 
unsay  within  a  twelvemonth  every  syllable  that  they  had  ut- 
tered. Following,  as  wras  his  wont,  immediately  upon  the  at- 
torney-general, as  if  to  force  the  government  to  observe  the 

15 


226  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VI. 

contrast  between  its  actual  and  its  possible  law-officer,  lie 
showed  by  historical  examples  that  while  the  House  of  Com- 
mons had  always  jealously  guarded  the  right  of  a  subject  to 
petition  his  sovereign,  it  had  never  been  so  precise  and  out- 
spoken in  its  assertion  of  that  right  as  in  cases  where  the  mat- 
ter of  the  petition  related  to  the  summoning  and  dissolving 
of  Parliament.1  And  then,  having  established  his  position,  and 
proved  how  ancient  and  how  firmly  based  was  the  privilege 
which,  if  the  Court  had  its  way,  was  thenceforward  to  be  a 
dead  letter,  he  besought  them  not  to  add  folly  to  illegality, 
but,  if  they  must  test  the  forbearance  of  Englishmen,  to  make 
the  experiment  on  some  weak  and  solitary  individual  rather 
than  on  the  leading  city  of  the  world — a  city  which,  the  last 
time  that  it  seriously  exerted  itself  in  the  cause  of  freedom, 
never  ceased  to  bear  testimony  against  the  tyranny  of  the 
Crown  until  the  Stuarts,  passing  from  crime  to  crime,  had  de- 
stroyed its  very  existence  as  an  organized  municipality  by 
methods  which  in  the  days  of  the  Brunswicks  no  sane  minis- 
ter would  venture  to  employ.  But  the  dangers  of  the  future 
weighed  as  lightly  with  Wedderburn's  hearers  as  the  prece- 
dents of  the  past;  and  Parliament  by  great  majorities  ex- 
pressed, in  every  form  that  the  constitution  would  permit,  its 

1  After  showing  that  the  crime  of  not  suffering  others  than  themselves 
"  to  come  near  the  king  to  advise  him "  had  been  one  of  the  charges 
which  cost  the  favorites  of  the  feebler  Plantagenets  their  heads ;  after 
relating  how,  under  Charles  the  Second,  the  House  had  voted  for  im- 
peaching Lord  Chief-justice  North,  the  ancestor  of  the  prime-minister, 
and  had  addressed  the  king  to  dismiss  Jeffreys  from  his  offices,  because 
that  pair  of  worthies  had  contrived  to  get  a  proclamation  issued  for  the 
purpose  of  discouraging  the  people  from  petitioning  for  the  calling  of 
a  Parliament ;  after  instancing  how  a  previous  House  of  Commons  had 
actually  expelled  one  of  its  members  for  taking  on  his  own  account  a 
course  precisely  similar  to  that  which  the  ministry  was  now  urging  the 
existing  House  of  Commons  to  pursue — Wedderburn  closed  his  list  of 
cases  by  quoting  a  resolution  proposed  in  the  reign  of  William  the  Third 
by  the  Lord  Hartington  of  the  day,  and  carried  by  a  majority  of  two  to 
one,  which  declared  "  that  it  is  the  undoubted  right  of  the  peojrie  of  Eng- 
land to  petition  or  address  the  king  for  the  calling,  sitting,  and  dissolv- 
ing of  parliaments." 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  227 

vehement  and  reiterated  condemnation  of  an  act  which  had 
been  deliberately  sanctioned,  with  one  dissenting  voice,  by 
three  thousand  of  the  citizens  of  London  in  common  hall  as- 
sembled. 

And  now  it  seemed  as  if  the  unscrupulous  proceedings  of 
the  cabinet  and  the  Court  were  at  length  about  to  produce  the 
consequences  which,  in  a  nation  resolute  to  preserve  the  bless- 
ings of  law  and  order,  are  the  inevitable  fruit  of  illegality  and 
violence  in  high  places.  On  the  twenty-third  of  March,  the 
two  Houses  elicited  an  assurance  of  gratitude  from  the  king 
by  informing  him  of  the  indignation  with  which  they  viewed 
the  excesses  into  which  his  misguided  subjects  had  been  se- 
duced by  "the  insidious  suggestions  of  ill-designing  men;" 
and  the  estates  of  the  realm  had  hardly  fulminated  their  joint 
rebuke  against  the  citizens  of  London  when  it  became  abun- 
dantly evident  that  the  spirit  which  prompted  the  remon- 
strance was  abroad  everywhere  within  thirty  miles  of  Corn- 
hill.  On  the  morning  of  the  twenty-eighth  of  March,  the 
electors  of  Westminster  came  to  a  unanimous  resolution  to 
imitate  the  example  of  the  Livery,  and  within  half  an  hour 
their  address  was  in  the  king's  hands;  so  determined  were 
they  to  be  the  first  to  announce  that,  as  Chatham  phrased  it, 
they  were  not  "frightened  out  of  their  birthrights  by  big 
words  from  the  destroyers  of  them."  Middlesex  followed  suit 
on  the  thirtieth  ;  and  the  City,  with  a  deliberation  evincing  its 
sense  of  the  gravity  of  the  contest  into  which  it  had  been 
forced,  took  measures  for  repeating  an  offence  which,  on  the 
second  occasion,  could  not  be  expected  to  pass  without  some- 
thing more  serious  than  a  reprimand.  In  a  few  weeks  at  the 
latest,  Lord  North  and  his  colleagues  would  have  to  say 
whether  they  were  prepared  to  anticipate  that  measure 
against  the  port  and  town  of  Boston  which  was  soon  to  set 
the  mother-country  and  her  colonies  by  the  ears,  and  bring 
forward  a  bill  of  pains  and  penalties  against  the  City  of  Lon- 
don. They  were  beginning  to  learn  the  truth  of  Burke's 
warning,  when  he  told  them  that  they  must  either  act  with 
the  people  or  fight  against  them,  since  they  had  "  no  other 
materials  to  work  upon  but  those  out  of  which  God  had  been 


228  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VI. 

pleased  to  form  the  inhabitants  of  this  island."  It  was  idle  to 
explain,  as  their  pamphleteers  attempted  to  explain,  the  diffi- 
culties and  dangers  of  the  situation  by  cavils  and  recrimina- 
tions which  resolved  themselves  into  the  "  short  but  discour- 
aging proposition  that  we  have  a  very  good  ministry,  but  that 
we  are  a  very  bad  people."  The  discontent,  which  was  now 
all  but  universal  among  those  who  were  not  paid  to  be  con- 
tented, armed  every  assailant  of  the  Court  with  an  authority 
tenfold  that  which  in  quiet  times  he  would  have  commanded 
by  his  own  talents,  and  a  hundredfold  that  which  attached  it- 
self to  the  pensioned  scribes  who  defended  the  ministerial 
policy,  though  the  acknowledged  chief  of  British  literature 
was  conspicuous  among  them.  Under  the  pressure  of  an  ap- 
peal to  his  gratitude,  which  he  justly  regarded  as  a  cruel 
wTrong,  and  which  to  the  day  of  his  death  he  never  even  af- 
fected to  forgive,  Johnson  submitted  himself  once  more  to  the 
slavery  which  in  earlier  life  he  had  endured  under  the  pinch 
of  necessity,  and  with  much  the  same  feelings  towards  both 
his  emplo}7ers,  became  the  hack  of  North  the  minister,  as  he 
of  old  had  been  the  hack  of  Osborne  the  bookseller — if  a  hack 
be  he  who  writes  badly  and  reluctantly  on  a  theme  select- 
ed for  him  by  others.  Those  who  had  sat  at  the  feet  of 
the  Rambler  could  not  conceal  their  feeling  of  disappoint- 
ment, and  almost  of  personal  injury,  when  they  were  invited 
to  search  the  pages  of  the  "  False  Alarm"  for  such  moral  truths 
as  that  the  expressions  of  shame  and  wrath  with  which  an 
honest  man  heard  that  his  parliamentary  representative  had 
been  bought  with  a  handful  of  bank-notes  were  "  outcries  ut- 
tered by  malignity  and  echoed  by  folly,"  or  for  such  jewels 
of  political  science  as  the  proposition  that  the  farmers  and 
shopkeepers  of  Yorkshire  and  Cumberland  need  not  know  or 
care  how  Middlesex  was  represented.1     Strong,  indeed,  must 

1  Whoever  would  see,  in  the  space  of  a  couple  of  pages,  the  difference 
between  the  work  of  great  men  when  taking  the  right  side  of  a  question 
which  they  understand  and  the  wrong  side  of  a  question  which  they  do 
not,  should  compare  the  account  of  the  process  of  getting  up  a  county 
petition,  which  is  the  best,  or  at  any  rate  the  least  feeble,  passage  in  the 
*•  False  Alarm,"  with  the  paragraph  in  the  "  Thoughts  on  the  Discontents  " 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  229 

have  been  the  party  spirit  of  a  reader  who  could  excuse 
Johnson  for  consenting  to  expose  such  a  reputation  to  a  vent- 
ure from  the  consequences  of  which  it  never  recovered  until, 
at  a  time  of  life  when  the  world  has  as  little  right  to  expect 
a  masterpiece  from  an  author  as  a  brilliant  campaign  from  a 
general,  he  delighted  every  one,  and  astonished  all  but  those 
who  were  admitted  to  the  fearful  joys  of  his  familiar  talk,  by 
producing  with  matchless  ease  and  rapidity  a  whole  series  of 
biographies  almost  as  pleasing,  and  quite  as  powerful,  as  any 
that  have  appeared  from  Plutarch  downwards. 

Junius,  meanwhile,  at  the  height  of  a  popularity  which  to 
a  calm  and  somewhat  indifferent  posterity  seems  at  times  a 
more  curious  problem  even  than  his  identity,  did  not  conde- 
scend to  retaliate  upon  the  disputants  who  challenged  him 
on  behalf  of  the  government.  Too  proud  and  too  shrewd 
to  fatigue  or  bemire  himself  by  charging  into  their  highly 
disciplined  but  faint-hearted  ranks,  with  the  true  instinct  of 
a  polemical  strategist  he  marched  straight  against  the  key  of 
the  hostile  position.  Until  the  end  of  1769  he  had  flown  at 
no  nobler  quarry  than  a  prime-minister,  and  had  been  satis- 
fied with  the  amusement  of  smiling  grimly  at  the  flutter 
caused  in  the  higher  ranks  of  the  peerage  when  the  Piiblic 
Advertiser  came  out  with  an  announcement  of  "  Junius  to  an- 
other duke  in  our  next ;"  but  at  last,  on  the  nineteenth  of  De- 
cember, appeared  his  "  Letter  to  the  King."  Instead  of  heark- 
ening to  the  counsels  embodied  in  this  admirable  composi- 
tion— counsels  which  no  one  with  judgment  would  call  inju- 
dicious, and  which  it  is  a  pity  that  a  plain-spoken  and  stout- 
hearted man  like  his  Majesty  should  have  regarded  as  disre- 
spectful1— George  the  Third,  after  taking  Christmas  to  think 

which  argues,  no  better  than  Burke  in  that  marvellous  production  argues 
everything,  how  it  is  that  when  the  people  and  their  rulers  are  at  odds, 
"  the  presumption  is  at  least  upon  a  par  in  favor  of  the  people." 

1  "  The  doctrine  inculcated  by  our  laws,  that  the  king  can  do  no  wrong, 
is  admitted  without  reluctance.  We  separate  the  amiable,  good-natured 
prince  from  the  folly  and  treachery  of  his  servants,  and  the  private  vir- 
tues of  the  man  from  the  vices  of  his  government.  Were  it  not  for  this 
just  distinction,  I  know  not  whether  your  Majesty's  condition  or  that  of 


230  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

it  over,  could  light  upon  no  more  seasonable  device  for  pro- 
moting peace  and  good-will  than  the  prosecution  of  everybody 
who  had  been  concerned  in  publishing,  reprinting,  or  selling 
what  he  insisted  upon  viewing  as  a  libel.  As  soon  as  the 
new  year  opened,  the  King's  Bench  was  at  work  on  the  cases ; 
and  on  the  thirteenth  of  January,  Woodfall,  the  editor  of  the 
Advertiser,  was  brought  up  for  trial.  Lord  Mansfield,  in  con- 
formity with  the  legal  doctrine,  for  maintaining  which  he 
was  unmercifully  punished  in  the  House  of  Lords  by  Camden 
and  Chatham,  and  of  which  Junius  did  not  let  him  hear  the 
last  until  the  last  had  been  heard  of  Junius,  charged  the  jury 
to  consider  whether  the  defendant  had  published  the  letter 
set  out  in  the  information,  but  instructed  them  that  they 
had  no  business  with  the  more  vital  point,  whether  that  let- 
ter was  a  false  and  malicious  libel  or  a  veracious  and  public- 
spirited  manifesto.  The  jury,  however,  read  their  duty  other- 
wise; and  their  verdict  of  "Guilty  of  printing  and  publish- 
ing only"  secured  the  liberty  of  the  press  until  the  period 
when,  in  the  height  of  the  anti-Jacobin  panic,  writers  obnox- 
ious to  the  Court  ceased  for  a  time  to  have  the  middle  classes 
on  their  side. 

While  the  ministry  were  forced  to  abandon  the  hope  of 
getting  Junius  or  his  coadjutors  into  prison,  they  looked  for- 
ward with  dismay  to  the  moment  when  Wilkes  should  be  out 
of  it.  The  eighteenth  of  April  would  see  the  tribune  at 
large ;  free  to  go  remonstrating  to  St.  James's  in  his  alder- 
man's gown,  at  the  head  of  as  many  of  the  Livery  as  could 
squeeze  themselves  into  the  throne-room ;  free  to  march  into 
Palace  Yard,  with  all  Farringdon  and  Bishopsgate  at  his  back, 
in  order  to  place  himself  by  force  in  the  seat  which  still  was 
his  by  law.     With  Wilkes  at  liberty,  agitating  for  a  new  Par- 


the  English  nation  would  deserve  most  to  be  lamented.  Your  subjects, 
sir,  wish  for  nothing  but  that,  as  they  are  reasonable  and  affectionate 
enough  to  separate  your  person  from  your  government,  so  you,  in  your 
turn,  should  distinguish  between  the  conduct  which  becomes  the  perma- 
nent dignity  of  a  king  and  that  which  serves  only  to  promote  the  tem- 
porary interest  and  miserable  ambition  of  a  minister." 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  231 

liament;  with  Junius,  in  letters  that  sold  a  double  impression 
of  every  journal  into  which  they  were  pirated,  hinting  one 
day  that  Lord  North's  head  was  growing  too  heavy  for  his 
shoulders,  and  sneering  at  him  the  next  as  having  no  knowl- 
edge of  finance  except  what  he  had  gathered  through  George 
Grenville's  keyhole,  and  no  pretensions  to  oratory  beyond 
the  fact  that  he  spoke  like  Demosthenes  when  his  mouth  was 
full  of  pebbles,  the  prime-minister  began  to  fear  that  he  was 
destined  to  have  the  fate  of  Strafford  without  his  fame.  It 
was  waste  of  words  to  recommend  concession  to  his  royal 
master.  At  the  first  mention  of  an  appeal  to  the  constitu- 
encies, the  king  had  laid  his  hand  upon  his  sword,  and  had 
said  plainly  that  he  would  have  recourse  to  that  sooner  than 
be  coerced  into  a  dissolution.  The  Court  was  murmuring  be- 
cause the  City  was  let  off  too  easily,  and  his  Majesty  was  com- 
plaining that  his  ministers  had  no  spirit,1  at  a  conjuncture  when 
men  whose  temperament  did  not  lead  them  to  exaggerate  the 
significance  of  a  political  situation  were  aghast  at  witnessing 
the  Crown  and  the  Parliament  committed  to  a  conflict  with 
the  population  not  only  of  the  capital,  but  of  the  most  pros- 
perous and  thickly  inhabited  districts  in  the  island.  Horace 
Walpole  terrified  his  correspondent  at  Florence  with  a  strik- 
ing exposition  of  the  misgivings  which  possessed  him  while 
the  event  was  still  in  the  future.  The  crisis  (so  he  wrote  to 
Mann)  was  tremendous.  If  it  became  necessary  to  chastise 
London  in  the  person  of  its  mayor  and  sheriffs,  many  noble- 
men and  members  of  Parliament  would  demand  to  be  includ- 
ed in  their  sentence.  The  Tower,  crammed  with  such  proud 
criminals,  would  be  a  formidable  scene  indeed.  The  counties 
would  enforce  their  petitions  by  remonstrances,  and  their  re- 
monstrances by  refusals  to  pay  the  land-tax.     Rebellion  was 

1  Calcraft  to  Chatham,  March  24  and  27.  Junius  affirms,  in  a  foot- 
note to  his  republished  letters,  that  George  the  Third  was  so  much  af- 
fected by  the  unwillingness  of  his  ministers  to  impeach  the  lord  mayor 
and  the  sheriffs  that  he  was  reduced  to  live  upon  potatoes  for  three  weeks 
in  order  to  keep  off  a  fever.  But  the  foot-notes  of  Junius,  unfortunately 
for  the  picturesqueness  of  history,  must  not  be  taken  as  fragments  of 
gospel. 


232  THE   EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

in  everybody's  mouth ;  and  nothing  could  avert  it  unless  the 
prime  mover  of  all  the  discord  and  confusion  could  be  induced 
to  see  that  it  was  easier  for  a  king  of  England  to  disarm  the 
minds  of  his  subjects  than  their  hands.  "  The  English  may 
be  soothed,"  said  Walpole.  "  I  never  read  that  they  were  to 
be  frightened.  This  is  my  creed,  and  all  our  history  supports 
it."  Hume  predicted  a  revolution  still  more  confidently  than 
"Walpole,  and  very  much  more  complacently.  He  watched 
the  march  of  events  with  an  historian's  eye  for  an  effect,  and 
in  jovial  expectation  of  the  troubles  that  were  impending 
over  the  nation  which  he  detested.  Party  bigotry,  acting 
upon  natures  worthy  of  a  better  inspiration,  has  produced 
some  singular  results;  but,  if  it  were  not  self -drawn,  few 
would  regard  as  anything  short  of  caricature  the  picture  of  a 
humorist,  so  kind-hearted,  tolerant,  and  playful  that  an  epi- 
cure in  society  wTould  almost  consent  to  have  lived  a  century 
ago  for  the  pleasure  of  his  company,  exclaiming  against  his 
own  ill-luck  in  having  been  born  a  century  too  early  to  enjoy 
the  privilege  of  narrating  the  disruption  and  ruin  of  the  com- 
munity of  which  he  was  himself  a  citizen.1 

The  elements  of  a  political  convulsion  had,  indeed,  long 
been  brewing :  an  obstinate  court ;  an  enraged  people ;  a 
press  teased,  but  not  restrained,  by  a  feeble  and  meddling 


1  "  I  live  still,"  Hume  wrote  from  Edinburgh  in  October,  1769,  "  and 
must  for  a  twelvemonth,  in  my  old  house,  which  is  very  cheerful,  and 
even  elegant,  but  too  small  to  display  my  great  talent  for  cookery,  the 
science  to  which  I  intend  to  addict  the  remaining  years  of  my  life.  I 
have  just  now  lying  on  the  table  before  me  a  receipt  for  making  soupe 
a  la  reine,  copied  with  my  own  hand.  For  beef  and  cabbage  (a  charm- 
ing dish),  and  old  mutton  and  old  claret,  nobody  excels  me.  All  my 
friends  encourage  me  in  this  ambition,  as  thinking  it  will  redound  very 
much  to  my  honor. 

"  I  am  delighted  to  see  the  daily  and  hourly  progress  of  madness  and 
folly  and  wickedness  in  England.  The  consummation  of  these  qualities 
are  the  true  ingredients  for  making  a  fine  narrative  in  history,  especially 
if  followed  by  some  signal  and  ruinous  convulsion,  as  I  hope  will  soon  be 
the  case  with  that  pernicious  people.  He  must  be  a  very  bad  cook  in- 
deed who  cannot  make  a  palatable  dish  from  the  whole.  You  see,  in  my 
reflections  and  allusions,  that  I  mix  my  old  and  new  professions  together." 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  233 

censorship ;  a  Parliament  where  the  minority  spoke  with  a 
freedom  which  stirred  the  nation,  and  the  majority  voted 
with  a  servility  which  exasperated  it.  Nothing  was  lacking 
but  a  leader;  and  that  void  would  be  supplied  on  the  day 
when  Wilkes,  uniting  in  his  person  the  most  formidable  and 
most  incongruous  attributes  —  an  enemy  of  the  governing 
powers,  with  the  law  on  his  side ;  an  idol  of  the  mob,  with 
the  gravest  constitutional  statesmen  in  the  country  for  his 
high-priests — should  walk  from  the  prison  where  he  had  been 
unjustly  confined  to  the  door  of  the  House  of  Commons 
which  was  illegally  shut  against  him.  A  dozen  supplement- 
ary numbers  of  the  North  Briton,  and  half  a  dozen  monster 
meetings  at  Mile  End  and  Moorfields,  at  York  and  Bristol 
and  Newcastle,  with  Grenville  or  Savile  in  the  chair  and 
Wilkes  on  the  platform,  would  have  forced  George  the  Third 
to  make  up  his  mind  speedily  and  decisively  between  draw- 
ing his  sword  and  calling  a  new  Parliament ;  and  in  that 
Parliament,  as  every  bye-election  in  the  large  constituencies 
proved,  the  ministry  would  not  command  a  single  unpur- 
chased vote.  With  all  the  genuine  representatives  of  the 
people  on  the  one  side,  and  nothing  but  -the  nominees  of 
boroughmongers  on  the  other — with  Burke  denouncing  the 
infamies  and  prodigalities  of  the  Civil  List,  and  Chatham 
thundering  for  triennial  parliaments,  and  for  a  hundred  ad- 
ditional knights  of  the  shire  elected  by  household  suffrage — 
1832  would  have  been  anticipated  by  two  generations,  and, 
the  throne  being  filled  as  it  then  was,  the  triumph  of  popular 
principles  could  hardly  have  been  effected  without  bloodshed. 
But  in  order  that  history  may  anticipate  or  repeat  itself, 
something  more  is  required  than  a  similarity  of  circumstances. 
The  hour  had  come;  but  the  hour  is  nothing  without  the 
man.  The  stage  was  clear  for  a  Mirabeau ;  but  the  gentle- 
man who  was  cast  for  the  character  had  no  fancy  for  the 
part.  Both  in  his  good  and  bad  qualities,  Wilkes  stands  alone 
among  all  the  personages  upon  whom  Clio  has  conferred  an 
equal  share  of  her  attention.  Though  far  from  great,  he  was 
too  strong  and  too  clever  to  have  greatness  thrust  upon  him. 
His  fancy  must  often  have  been  tickled  by  the  contrast  be- 


234  THE   EAKLY    HISTOHY   OF  [Chap.  VI. 

tween  his  sober  estimate  of  himself  and  the  more  than  heroic 
proportions  which  he  attained  in  the  eyes  of  others.  Accord- 
ing to  his  admirers,  there  was  no  one  since  Rienzi  who  was 
even  good  enough  to  be  compared  with  him.  He  was  Grac- 
chus, and  Drusus,  and  Timoleon  without  the  dagger.  He  had 
been  elected  for  Middlesex  as  often  and  as  deservedly  as 
Marius  had  been  chosen  consul.  He  had  returned  from 
France,  said  Diderot,  a  nobler  Coriolanus,  meditating  not  the 
ruin  of  his  country,  but  her  salvation.  His  detractors,  wrote 
Junius,  might  profess  to  regret  that  he  allowed  the  pleasures 
of  life  to  compete  with  the  glorious  business  of  instructing 
and  directing  the  people;  but  the  people  loved  and  revered 
their  teacher  none  the  less  because  they  knew  that  he  united 
the  public  virtues  of  a  Cato  with  the  cheerful  indulgence  of 
an  Epicurus.  The  only  acknowledgment  of  all  this  antiquated 
flattery  which  could  be  extracted  from  the  object  of  it  (who, 
if  he  had  cared  to  bandy  compliments  out  of  the  classics,  pos- 
sessed sound  learning  enough  to  repay  the  tinsel  of  his  ad- 
mirers with  sterling  coin)  was  a  not  very  sincere  assurance 
that  a  line  of  applause  from  the  pen  which  had  undone  Graf- 
ton made  his  blood  run  as  quick  "  as  a  kiss  from  Chloe." 
When  Junius  urged  him  not  to  make  his  presence,  which 
was  to  work  such  wonders  for  the  commonwealth,  too  cheap 
and  familiar  by  walking  so  frequently  in  the  streets,  Wilkes 
candidly  admitted  that  if  he  took  the  advice  and  kept  indoors 
it  would  be  from  no  loftier  motive  than  fear  of  "  the  greatest 
villains  out  of  hell,  the  bailiffs."  And  the  only  project  for 
the  repair  of  the  violated  constitution  in  which,  as  the  result 
of  three  lengthy  and  carefully  indited  appeals  to  his  patriot- 
ism, the  father  of  his  country  (for  that  was  one  of  his  titles) ! 

1  "  Johanni  Wilkes,  arinigero  : 
Qui  reipublicae  restituit  rein  : 

Patri  Patriae ; 
Coronam  hanc  necti  gratus 
Jussit  Apollo." 
Such  are  a  few  choice  morsels  from  a  hash  of  prose  and  verse,  stolen  from 
various  periods  of  Latin  literature,  with  which  Wilkes  was  flattered  as  a 
politician,  and  must  have  been  considerably  diverted  as  a  scholar,  during 
his  visit  to  King's  Lynn  in  1771. 


1770.]  CIIAELES  JAMES  FOX.  235 

could  be  persuaded  to  engage,  was  the  composition  of  a  letter 
to  the  lord  mayor,  begging  him  to  excuse  Mr.  Sheriff  Wilkes 
from  taking  part  in  a  "  vain  parade  "  on  the  anniversary  of 
the  accession  of  a  prince  who  would  not  redress  the  griev- 
ances of  his  subjects ;  an  act  of  self-denial  which,  as  the  au- 
stere tribune  remarked,  dispensed  him  from  "going  in  a  ginger- 
bread chariot  to  yawn  through  a  dull  sermon  at  St.  Paul's."  1 
Quite  unmoved  by  the  vague  and  vast  expectations  and 
alarms  which  he  excited  in  every  class  of  mind  and  every 
grade  of  society,  Wilkes  kept  steadily  in  sight,  and  continued 
patiently  to  pursue,  his  own  modest  but  very  definite  ambitions. 
Whoever  liked  mi^ht  regard  him  as  the  chosen  instrument  for 
humbling  the  Crown  and  purging  the  House  of  Commons; 
but  seven  years  of  fighting  against  almost  overwhelming  odds 
had  produced  the  same  cooling  effect  upon  his  pugnacity  as 
on  that  of  Frederic  the  Great.  He  had  no  notion  of  risking 
his  neck,  his  liberty,  or  even  his  leisure  in  tilting  at  abuses 
which  concerned  his  neighbors  every  bit  as  much  as  himself ; 
but  he  was  at  least  as  thoroughly  determined  never  to  re- 
nounce the  modicum  of  personal  success  and  advantage  which 
he  believed  to  be  his  due.  Before  he  died  he  meant  to  be 
acknowledged  as  member  for  Middlesex ;  and  till  he  died  he 
looked  to  getting  his  fair  share  in  the  good  things  of  the  only 
world  about  which  he  interested  himself,  for  his  indifference 
to  the  next  may  be  estimated  by  his  boast  that  he  had  been 
his  own  chaplain  since  Churchill's  death.2    When  his  term  of 

1  Junius  shows  poorly  in  his  private  communications  to  Wilkes.  The 
want  of  native  humor  which  was  at  the  root  of  his  very  serious  literary 
faults,  but  which  is  concealed  by  the  elaborate  ornamentation  of  his  pub- 
lic writings,  is  constantly  visible  when  he  is  off  his  guard.  His  letters 
of  advice  are  at  times  pompous  to  fatuity,  and  always  dreadfully  dull. 
Though  Wilkes  did  his  utmost  to  be  civil,  it  is  evident  that  he  soon  had 
enough  of  the  correspondence. 

2  It  was  Wilkes's  fortune  to  exercise  a  remarkable  fascination  over  cele- 
brated young  clergymen  who  ended  by  unfrocking  themselves.  Churchill 
was  already  devoted  to  him  at  the  period  when,  as  he  writes, 

"  I  kept  those  sheep, 
Which  for  my  curse  I  was  ordained  to  keep 


236  THE  EAELY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VI. 

imprisonment  was  over,  he  took  his  place  among  his  fellow- 
citizens  as  unostentatiously  as  their  ardor  and  devotion  would 
allow,  and  as  silently  as  was  permissible  without  exposing  him- 
self to  the  charge  of  surliness  or  ingratitude.  Shunning  the 
perilous  display  of  a  public  meeting,  he  employed  his  pen  to 
thank,  in  two  manly  and  spirited  addresses,  the  county  which 
had  done  its  best  to  make  him  a  member  of  Parliament,  and 
the  ward  which  had  made  him  an  alderman.  His  municipal 
duties  could  not  be  performed  except  in  person ;  and  for  weeks 
and  months  to  come,  whenever  he  appeared  in  Guildhall  or 
at  the  Mansion  House,  his  worse  than  plain  features  were 
rapturously  gazed  at  by  crowds  as  large  as  ever  went  to  see  a 
Miss  Gunning  married.  "  I  find,"  he  wrote  to  his  daughter, 
"  going  about  not  a  little  troublesome,  from  the  too  great  par- 
tiality of  my  countrymen."  Indeed,  it  was  for  his  daughter's 
sake  that  he  chiefly  valued  a  popularity  the  evidences  of  which 
he  communicated  to  her  by  letter  as  regularly  and  faithfully 
as  he  divided  with  her  the  tribute  in  money  and  in  kind  that 
flowed  in  upon  him  from  every  quarter.  Just  as  he  put  aside 
for  his  Polly  the  pineapple  out  of  a  hamper  of  fruit,  and.  the 
salmon-trout  out  of  a  basket  of  fish,  and  the  four  "  exquisitely 
beautiful  perroquets"  that  had  come  by  coach  from  Ports- 
mouth, so  he  never  failed  to  let  her  know,  with  a  copious  mi- 
nuteness which  in  a  lazy  correspondent  is  the  surest  proof  of 
affection,  how  he  had  been  cheered  and  mobbed  and  stared 
at ;  how  the  ladies  at  the  assembly-rooms  pulled  caps  to  dance 
with  him ;  how,  when  he  went  into  the  Eastern  counties  on 
business,  the  provincial  enthusiasm  and  curiosity  turned  what 
he  intended  to  be  a  quiet  jaunt  into  something  only  less  noisy 
and  fatiguing  than  a  royal  progress ;  how,  when  he  visited  Cam- 
bridge for  his  amusement,  he  was  received  both  by  town  and 
gown  as  respectfully  as  if  he  had  been  a  famous  foreign  gen- 
eral, and  much  more  respectfully  than  if  he  had  been  an  emi- 


(Ordained,  alas !  to  keep  through  need,  not  choice), 
Those  sheep  which  never  heard  their  shepherd's  voice; 
Which  did  not  know,  yet  would  not  learn,  their  way; 
Which  strayed  themselves,  yet  grieved  that  I  should  stray." 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  237 

icnt  foreign  scholar;1  how  the  electors  of  Westminster  had 
gone  like  one  man  for  a  candidate  who  had  no  other  claim  on 
their  suffrages  except  that  he  was  an  enemy  of  Sandwich,  who 
was  an  enemy  of  Wilkes ;  how  the  new  lord  mayor  was  a 
Wilkite,  and  the  new  city  member,  and  both  the  new  sheriffs  ; 
and  how,  when  he  himself  was  sworn  in  as  alderman,  his  Tory 
colleagues  gave  him  the  hearty  welcome  which  so  convivial  a 
fraternity  could  not  refuse  to  the  pleasantest  fellow  in  Eng- 
land. 

He  was  chosen  sheriff  in  1771,2  and  in  1775  the  news  of  his 


1  The  people  followed  Wilkes  about  the  colleges  "  in  great  crowds, 
with  prodigious  acclamations."  In  Trinity  Chapel,  on  the  Sunday  even- 
ing, the  anthem  was  from  the  116th  Psalm :  "I  am  well  pleased  that  the 
Lord  hath  heard  the  voice  of  my  prayer."  One  of  the  many  young 
Whigs  who  sat  whispering  there  in  their  surplices  came  up  to  Wilkes, 
and,  saying  with  emphasis, "  I  am  well  pleased,"  presented  him  with  a 
book  of  anthems ;  "  which,"  says  Wilkes,  "I  gave  to  a  pretty  woman  near 
me." 

It  was  the  same  in  the  West  of  England.  More  than  two  years  after 
he  had  come  out  of  prison,  as  he  was  yachting  along  the  Dorsetshire 
coast,  he  put  into  Swanage,  and  was  greeted  with  all  the  honors  which 
that "  rascally  dirty  little  town,"  as  he  ungratefully  calls  it,  could  pay 
him.  He  next  went  on  shore  at  Brixham,  and  found  the  population  of 
the  neighborhood  "  very  stanch  to  the  cause  of  liberty,"  and  much  edi- 
fied by  the  emotion  wrhich  he  exhibited  over  "  the  sacred  spot  where 
King  William  landed  to  rescue  a  wretched  people  from  slavery  and  the 
Stuarts." 

3  At  the  election  of  sheriffs  the  Court  made  a  last  attempt  to  molest 
Wilkes  by  supporting  a  pair  of  candidates  against  him  and  his  nominee. 
Incited  by  the  king,  who  assured  him  that  Wilkes  had  been  "in  his  vari- 
ous struggles  supported  by  a  small  though  desperate  part  of  the  Livery, 
while  the  sober  and  major  part  of  that  body  for  fear  kept  aloof,"  Lord 
North  sent  wrord  to  Mr.  Benjamin  Smith,  a  leading  ministerialist  in  the 
East  end,  that  the  cabinet  expected  all  its  friends  to  be  on  the  alert  till 
the  poll  was  over.  The  letter  was  carried  to  the  wrong  Benjamin  Smith, 
who,  with  the  smartness  of  a  true  Wilkite,  published  it  without  any  com- 
ment beyond  an  affidavit  of  its  authenticity;  and  the  only  effect  of  the 
government's  interference  was  to  make  Wilkes  doubly  sure,  and  to  bring 
his  man  of  straw  in  writh  him. 

By  1771  the  alienation  between  the  government  and  the  City  had  be- 
come proverbial.     One  of  the  characters  in  the  "  Maid  of  Bath,"  which 


238  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

elevation  to  the  office  of  lord  mayor  excited  a  profound  emo-' 
tion  among  politicians  on  the  Continent ;  but  Wilkes  meas- 
ured the  worth  of  what  he  had  gained  more  justly  than  the 
circle  of  famous  authors  and  philosophers  who  discussed  his 
rising  greatness  across  Baron  d'Holbach's  table  with  a  friendly 
interest  not  untinged  by  awe.  He  was  gratified  at  hearing 
Miss  Wilkes  universally  commended  as  the  best  lady  mayoress 
that  had  ever  done  the  honors  of  the  Mansion  House;  but  to 
himself  his  civic  dignities  were  weary,  flat,  and,  above  all,  un- 
profitable. To  spend  his  mornings  with  the  paving  commis- 
sioners and  his  afternoons  on  the  bench,  until  his  days,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  somewhat  profane  expression,  seemed  as 
long  as  those  in  the  last  chapter  of  Daniel ;  to  desert  his  roses 
at  Fulham,  or  the  book-shelves  in  his  pleasant  study  near  the 
Birdcage  Walk,  in  order  to  cruise  up  and  down  the  river  in 
the  City  barge,  exchanging  dinners  with  the  corporation  of 
Rochester,  and  acting  as  toast-master  till  two  in  the  morning 
at  a  board  from  which,  by  way  of  evincing  a  patriotic  dislike 
of  everything  that  was  French,  he  had  banished  the  only 
liquor  that  he  really  loved — were  inflictions  which  it  required 
nothing  less  than  a  handsome  and  a  permanent  salary  to  sweet- 
en. At  length,  after  a  few  more  years  of  barren  and  irksome 
notoriety,  he  lighted  upon  a  comfortable  anchorage  where  he 
could  ride  securely  after  the  storms  of  life.  In  1779  the 
chamberlain  of  London  died,  and  the  people,  whom  Wilkes 
had  so  bravely  and  faithfully  served,  were  proud  of  having  a 
post  in  their  gift  as  lucrative  as  anything  which  could  have 
fallen  to  his  lot  if  he  had  begun  his  public  career  by  writing 
up  Bute,  and  had  ended  it  by  writing  down  Chatham.  The 
Liverymen  hastened  to  install  their  old  favorite  in  a  situation 
which  exactly  suited  his  necessities  and  his  tastes.  His  most 
important  function  was  to  deliver  neat  little  harangues,  of 
which  he  enjoyed  the  composition  and  certainly  did  not  un- 
dervalue the  merits,  addressed  to  those  successful  warriors  and 


was  first  played  in  that  year,  expresses  the  idea  of  absolute  impossibility 
by  the  phrase  "  You  might  as  well  expect  a  minister  of  state  at  the  Man- 
sion House."  • 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  239 

statesmen  who  from  time  to  time  were  invested  with  the  free- 
dom of  the  city.  He  more  than  once  had  occasion  to  smile 
complacently  when  bluff  seamen,  fresh  from  exchanging  broad- 
sides with  the  French  Republicans  or  scrambling  through  the 
quarter-gallery  window  of  a  Spanish  three-decker,  reminded 
him,  while  acknowledging  his  compliments,  that  they  had 
drawn  their  swords  for  the  best  of  kings  as  well  as  for  the 
most  perfect  and  glorious  of  constitutions.  His  official  emolu- 
ments, which  were  out  of  all  proportion  to  his  duties,  enabled 
him  to  live  with  ease  and  style,  and  to  keep  as  much  ahead  of 
the  constable  as  his  very  unambitious  standard  of  solvency  de- 
manded. He  divided  his  year  between  a  mansion  in  Grosve- 
nor  Square  and  a  cottage  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  with  a  "  Tus- 
can room"  dedicated  to  Fortuna  Redux,  an  inscription  to  the 
filial  piety  of  Miss  Wilkes,  and  a  Doric  column  commemora- 
tive of  Churchill  in  the  shrubbery.  In  this  "villakin"  he 
lounged  away  his  summers,  for  the  most  part  alone  with  a 
daughter  who  returned  the  passionate  affection  which  he  lav- 
ished upon  her,  and  who  was  quite  capable  of  appreciating 
the  attractions  of  his  inimitable  talk,  which  was  none  the 
worse  for  having  been  scrupulously  expurgated  for  her  bene- 
fit. He  excused  himself  from  any  exertion  less  gentle  than 
that  of  occasionally  reprinting  for  private  circulation  a  classical 
author,  the  accuracy  of  whose  text  he  had  established  by  the 
facile  process  of  collating  previous  editions;  and  to  such  a 
point  did  he  carry  his  economy  of  labor  that  he  sent  his  Greek 
from  the  press  without  accents — a  piece  of  literary  audacity 
wrhich,  to  the  academic  mind,  is  a  stronger  proof  of  his  courage 
even  than  the  prefatory  remarks  on  the  letter  of  Lord  Wey- 
mouth. But,  at  whatever  value  Brunck  or  Porson  might  rate 
his  contributions  to  learning,  a  fine  vellum  copy  of  his  Ca- 
tullus or  his  Theophrastus  was  an  acceptable  offering  to  po- 
litical opponents  who  were  half  ashamed  of  the  part  they  had 
taken  against  him,  and  impatient  at  being  excluded  from  the 
privilege  of  listening  to  conversation  the  peculiar  charm  and 
relish  of  which  no  good  judge  butWalpole  ever  questioned.1 

1  "Wilkes  is  here,"  wrote  Walpole  from  Paris  in  1765,  "  and  has  been 


240  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

Lord  Mansfield,  who  had  long  been  saying  behind  his  back 
that  Mr.  Wilkes  was  the  politest  of  gentlemen,  the  best  of 
scholars,  and  the  pleasantest  of  companions,  was  glad  of  the 
opportunity  of  congratulating  him  to  his  face  upon  the  ele- 
gance of  the  amusements  which  beguiled  his  leisure.  The  first 
amicable  interview  between  the  authors  of  the  North  Briton 
and  of  the  "  False  Alarm  "  forms  the  most  entertaining  page 
in  the  most  entertaining  of  books.1  It  is  not  on  record  that 
Wilkes  was  ever  again  in  a  room  with  Sandwich,  though  there 
is  reason  to  believe  that,  in  the  sublimity  of  his  good-nature, 
he  would  have  made  no  objection  to  a  meeting,  the  account 
of  which  would  have  thrown  into  the  shade  even  the  dinner 
at  Mr.  Dilly's.  Eeconciled  to  every  reputable  opponent,  from 
the  king  downwards,  he  lived  disliked  by  no  one,  and  respect- 
ed after  a  fashion  by  most,  until,  at  the  close  of  1797,  he  died 
at  the  canonical  age  of  threescore  years  and  ten. 

The  main  object  of  his  life  had  long  ere  that  been  attained. 

twice  to  see  me  in  iny  illness.  He  was  very  civil,  but  I  cannot  say  enter- 
tained me  much.  I  saw  no  wit.  He  has  certainly  one  merit.  Notwith- 
standing the  bitterness  of  his  pen,  he  has  no  rancor — not  even  against 
Sandwich,  of  whom  he  talked  with  temper."  Gibbon,  on  the  other  hand, 
who,  in  early  days,  had  dined  with  Wilkes  in  the  character  of  a  brother- 
officer  of  militia,  declared  that  he  scarcely  ever  met  a  better  companion, 
and  recognized  in  him  "  inexhaustible  spirits,  infinite  wit  and  humor,  and 
a  great  deal  of  knowledge  ;V  and  Voltaire  testified  to  his  social  qualifica- 
tions in  terms  at  least  as  high  as  those  employed  by  Gibbon.  "  Noth- 
ing," said  Mrs.  Thrale,  in  Miss  Burney's  presence,  "  is  so  fatiguing  as  the 
life  of  a  wit.  Garrick  and  Wilkes  are  the  two  oldest  men  of  their  ages 
I  know ;  for  they  have  both  worn  themselves  by  being  eternally  on  the 
rack  to  give  entertainment  to  others."  "  David,"  said  Johnson,  putting 
the  lady's  remark  into  the  shortest  compass,  "  looks  much  older  than  he 
is ;  for  his  face  has  had  double  the  business  of  any  other  man's." 

1  It  was  on  a  subsequent  occasion  that  Johnson  proved  himself  worthy 
of  the  best  chance  that  the  fortune  of  talk  ever  threw  in  his  way.  Wilkes 
had  suggested  that  the  House  of  Commons,  in  the  teeth  of  an  inconven- 
ient statute,  might  order  the  pay  of  the  army  in  America  to  be  remitted 
in  English  money.  "  Sure,  sir,"  said  Johnson,  "you  don't  think  a  resolu- 
tion of  the  House  of  Commons  equal  to  the  law  of  the  land."  Wilkes 
lowered  his  arms  at  once,  and  wisely  contented  himself  with  ejaculating, 
"  God  forbid !" 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  241 

He  left  prison  fully  resolved  not  to  desist  until  he  had  estab- 
lished the  principle  that  the  choice  of  the  people  was  never  to 
be  set  aside  in  deference  to  monarch  or  minister,  and  that  the 
representatives  of  the  nation  were  to  be  elected  at  the  polling- 
booth,  and  not  inside  the  House  of  Commons.  That  principle, 
which  the  debates  of  1770  had  left  in  the  shape  of  a  proposi- 
tion, he  intended,  before  Lord  North  had  done  with  him,  to 
place  high  on  the  list  of  constitutional  axioms;  but  what  he 
proposed  to  effect  for  the  public  advantage  was  to  be  done  at 
his  own  time  and  in  his  own  way.  His  partisans  urged  him 
to  assert  his  rights,  even  at  the  expense  of  a  scene  in  Parlia- 
ment and  a  revolution  in  the  country.  He,  however,  accord- 
ing to  the  saying  of  a  book  which  he  consulted  more  fre- 
quently for  quotation  than  for  edification,  knew  that  his 
strength  lay  in  sitting  still.  If  the  British  Constitution  was 
to  stand,  the  world  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  come  round  to 
him  at  last.  "  I  have  not,"  he  wrote  to  his  daughter  in  May, 
1770, "  been  at  either  House,  to  avoid  every  pretence  of  a  riot, 
or  influencing  their  debates  by  a  mob."  He  refused  to  con- 
vert a  grave  and  weighty  political  ceremony  into  a  personal 
insult  to  his  sovereign  by  making  one  in  the  procession  of 
aldermen  who  carried  their  periodical  remonstrance  to  St. 
James's.  He  was  not  used,  he  said,  to  go  into  any  gentleman's 
house  who  did  not  wish  to  see  him.  His  forbearance  was  re- 
warded when  Beckford  (taking  a  course  not  more  unprece- 
dented and  informal  than  the  proceedings  by  which  the  cabi- 
net had  provoked  him,  as  the  representative  of  an  injured 
people,  to  break  through  the  well-founded  etiquette  of  the 
palace)  told  his  Majesty  the  wholesome  truth  in  words  as 
plain  and  free  as  ever  one  honest  man  used  to  another — words 
which  the  citizens  of  London  may  still  read  with  profit  be- 
neath the  statue  of  their  great  lord  mayor  in  the  Guildhall. 
It  was  the  spirit  of  Old  England,  cried  Chatham,  which  spoke 
on  that  never-to-be-forgotten  day. 

"With  the  moral  triumph  on  his  side,  Wilkes  could  afford  to 
wait.  At  the  commencement  of  each  session  the  sheriffs,  bet- 
ter Wilkites  than  himself,  summoned  him  to  appear  in  Parlia- 
ment as  member  for  Middlesex ;  but  he  remained  quietly  at 

16 


2±2  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

home  while  Luttrell,  as  was  said  with  wit  that  had  a  serious 
political  meaning  behind  it,  continued  to  vote,  like  a  good 
representative,  in  strict  conformity  with  the  views  of  his  con- 
stituents ;  that  is  to  say,  with  the  views  of  the  majority  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  At  the  general  election  of  1774  the  in- 
truder abandoned  his  untenable  position  ;  no  other  govern- 
ment candidate  was  put  in  nomination  at  Brentford ;  and  Ser- 
geant Glynn  and  his  patron  were  returned  unopposed.  The 
ministers  came  back  from  the  country  with  a  stronger  follow- 
ing than  ever ;  but,  with  Massachusetts  in  a  flame,  they  did 
not  care  to  rake  up  the  embers  in  Middlesex,  and,  wTith  silent 
prudence,  they  allowed  Wilkes  to  take  his  seat  in  peace. 
Thenceforward,  as  long  as  he  cared  to  be  their  member,  the 
freeholders  sent  him  back  to  each  successive  Parliament, 
without  the  trouble  of  a  contest,1  and,  for  the  most  part,  ac- 
companied by  any  colleague  whom  he  chose  to  name.  No 
lapse  of  time,  no  difference  of  opinion  on  the  public  questions 
of  the  day,  could  detach  their  loyalty  from  the  man  with 
whom  their  own  liberties  and  the  honor  of  their  county  were 
identified.  Years  rolled  on,  and  every  year  did  something  to 
bring  into  deeper  discredit  the  system  of  government  that 
began  with  Bute.  The  policy  of  which  Wilkes  was  the  ear- 
liest victim  had  at  length  conducted  the  whole  nation  from 
the  summit  of  glory  and  prosperity,  through  the  depths  of 
humiliation,  to  the  very  brink  of  ruin;  and  on  the  third  of 
May,  1782,  he  rose  to  tell  before  a  sympathetic  audience  his 
own  version  of  his  oft-told  story,  and  to  move  that  the  resolu- 
tion of  the  seventeenth  of  February,  1769,  which  declared 
him  incapable  of  being  elected  a  member  of  Parliament 
should  be  expunged  from  the  journals  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. Charles  Fox,  who  then  long  had  been,  and  was  still 
for  a  short  while  to  continue,  without  a  rival  in  that  assembly, 
thought  it  incumbent  on  him  to  pay  a  tribute  to  political  con- 


1  The  opposition  at  the  contested  election  of  1784  was  not  directed 
against  Wilkes.  Even  while  his  party  lay  prostrate  beneath  the  load  of 
unpopularity  which  crushed  the  Coalition  Ministry,  his  seat  was  never 
for  a  moment  in  danger. 


1770.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  243 

sistency  in  the  shape  of  a  dry  and  perfunctory  counter-argu- 
ment, very  different  from  the  rattling  invectives  by  which, 
twelve  years  back,  he  had  thrown  the  ministerial  benches  into 
a  ferment,  and  turned  the  tables  upon  speakers  who  had  been 
parliamentary  authorities  before  he  was  born  or  thought  of. 
Fox  did  not  succeed  in  averting  a  decision  in  which  he  was 
prepared  beforehand  to  acquiesce.  The  resolution  was  an- 
nulled by  a  majority  pretty  nearly  in  proportion  to  that  which 
had  originally  carried  it ;*  and  then,  going  beyond  what  Wilkes 
thought  his  due,  the  House,  without  a  single  dissentient  voice, 
ordered  its  clerk  to  remove  from  its  records  all  traces  what- 
soever of  its  own  arbitrary  proceedings  in  the  past,  "  as  being 
subversive  of  the  rights  of  the  whole  body  of  electors  of  this 
kingdom." 

Historians  have  been  blamed  for  giving  too  much  of  their 
space  to  Wilkes,  and  to  the  cause  which  he  almost  reluctantly 
represented ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  other  method  could 
be  pursued,  if  it  "be  the  aim  of  history  to  relate  the  events 
which  filled  the  minds  of  people  in  days  gone  by  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  strike  the  minds  of  people  in  the  present.  The 
most  random  excursion  or  the  most  patient  and  diligent  re- 
search into  the  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century  will  alike 
confirm  the  truth  of  a  remark  made  by  a  contemporary  an- 
nalist of  no  mean  authority,  who  pronounced  that  no  public 
measure  since  the  succession  of  the  Brunswicks  had  caused 
"  so  general  an  alarm  and  so  universal  a  discontent "  as  the 
foisting  of  Colonel  Luttrell  upon  an  unwilling  constituency.3 
As  to  the  legality  or  wisdom  of  that  step,  there  has  ceased  to 
be  any  diversity  of  judgment  whatsoever.  "  I  have  constantly 
observed,"  wrote  Burke,  when  the  quarrel  was  at  its  hottest, 
"  that  the  generality  of  people  are  at  least  fifty  years  behind- 
hand in  their  politics.  Men  are  wise  with  but  little  reflection, 
and  good  with  little  self-denial,  in  the  business  of  all  times 

1  The  famous  resolution  had  been  carried  in  1769  by  235  votes  to  89, 
and  was  annulled  in  1782  by  115  votes  to  47. 

2  This  observation  occurs  on  page  68  of  the  "Annual  Register"  for 
1769.  The  passage  was  probably  written,  and  undoubtedly  revised,  by 
Burke. 


244  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VI. 

except  their  own.  Few  are  the  partisans  of  departed  tyranny. 
I  believe  there  was  no  professed  admirer  of  Henry  the  Eighth 
among  the  instruments  of  the  last  King  James ;  nor  in  the 
court  of  Henry  the  Eighth  was  there,  I  dare  say,  to  be  found 
a  single  advocate  for  the  favorites  of  Richard  the  Second." 
It  did  not  take  fifty  years  to  fulfil  this  prophecy,  so  subtly 
couched  in  the  form  of  an  historical  generalization.  Long 
before  that  term  had  elapsed,  politicians  wTho  were  opposing 
reforms  which  Richmond  and  Rockingham  would  have  pro- 
moted, and  walking  through  lobbies  in  which  Burke  and 
Savile  wTould  never  have  been  found,  were  one  and  all  for- 
ward in  protesting  that,  if  they  had  been  born  a  generation 
earlier,  they  wrould  have  spoken  and  voted  with  the  Whigs  at 
every  point  of  the  dispute  about  the  Middlesex  election. 


Chap.VIL]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  245 


CHAPTEK  VII. 

The  Favorable  Conditions  for  taking  Bank  as  an  Orator  under  which 
Fox  entered  Parliament. — His  Early  Career. — He  becomes  a  Junior 
Lord  of  the  Admiralty. — His  Father's  Pride  and  Pleasure. — Lord  Hol- 
land's Unpopularity. — The  Balances  of  the  Pay-office. — Lord  Holland's 
Indulgence  towards  his  Children. — King's  Gate.— Charles  Fox  and 
his  Studies. — His  Passion  for  Poetry. — Naples. — Paris. — Intimate  Re- 
lations between  the  Good  Society  of  France  and  England. — Shopping 
in  Paris. — Intellectual  Commerce  between  the  Two  Countries. — Feel- 
ings of  Fox  towards  France. — Madame  du  Deffand. — Fitzpatrick. — 
Mrs.  Crewe.— Private  Theatricals. — Effect  of  his  Stage  Experience  on 
Fox's  Speaking. 

If  the  main  end  of  public  life  is  to  hold  power  as  a  minis- 
ter, Charles  Fox  was  of  all  statesmen  the  most  unfortunate; 
but,  as  though  in  compensation  for  the  ill-luck  that  awaited 
him,  the  circumstances  of  his  early  career  could  not  have  been 
more  favorably  arranged  for  the  purpose  of  educating  him 
into  an  orator.  The  peculiar  temptations  of  the  House  of 
Commons  are  seldom  understood  outside  its  walls ;  and  of  all 
those  temptations  the  most  irresistible  is  that  which  invites  a 
speaker,  who  is  still  on  his  promotion,  to  acquire  the  fatal 
habit  of  flattering  his  audience.  Lofty  sentiments  arrayed  in 
burning  words,  stern  truths  embellished,  but  not  concealed,  by 
the  ornaments  of  language,  and  all  else  that  constitutes  high 
and  genuine  eloquence,  are  not  expected,  and  if  forthcoming 
are  seldom  readily  accepted,  from  those  who  are  not  already 
in  possession  of  what  in  homely  phrase  is  known  as  the  ear  of 
the  House ;  and  an  aspirant  very  soon  discovers  that  the  short- 
est and  surest  method  of  gaining  the  ear  of  the  House  is  to  say 
what  pleases  the  most  numerous  section  of  its  members.  And 
so  it  often  happens  that  a  politician  who  begins  by  speaking 
in  manly  and  faithful  obedience  to  his  own  beliefs  and  aspi- 
rations gradually  learns  the  art  of  reserving  himself  for  occa- 


246  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

sions  when  those  beliefs  happen  to  coincide  with  the  views,  or, 
it  may  be,  the  prejudices,  of  the  assembly  which  he  addresses ; 
forgetting,  until  it  is  too  late,  that  he  purchases  each  succes- 
sive ovation  at  the  expense  of  the  unflinching  sincerity  which 
is  the  soul  of  true  oratory. 

But  with  Charles  Fox,  most  happily  for  himself  and  his 
countrymen,  the  process  was  exactly  reversed.  Before  his 
character  was  formed ;  before  the  party  with  which  he  was 
to  act  was  deliberately  and  finally  chosen ;  before,  it  may  al- 
most be  said,  he  was  old  enough  to  have  opinions  at  all ;  he 
found  himself  in  complete  accord  with  all  that  was  most  vio- 
lent in  the  passions  which  swayed  the  majority  of  his  parlia- 
mentary colleagues,  but  which  were  shared  by  few  of  the 
ablest,  and  none  of  the  most  earnest,  statesmen  of  the  day. 
With  nobody  better  than  Rigby  and  Sir  Fletcher  Norton  to 
oppose  to  Burke  and  Wedderburn,  the  ministerialists  wanted 
a  spokesman,  while  Fox  was  looking  about  for  a  topic ;  and 
thus  it  came  to  pass  that,  with  unexampled  rapidity,  he  shot 
straight  to  the  front,  and  acquired  the  confidence  which  em- 
boldened him  freely  to  speak  his  mind,  and  the  authority 
which  secured  him  a  hearing.  And  then,  when  his  position 
was  established — when  he  had  begun  to  think  for  himself, 
with  the  certainty  that  the  world  would  listen  eagerly  and  re- 
spectfully to  the  result  of  his  reflections — there  was  presented 
to  him  as  fertile  and  elevated  a  theme  as  ever  called  forth  the 
powers  of  an  orator;  and  during  eight  years  of  a  ceaseless 
and  arduous  struggle  against  the  folly  of  those  who  first  in- 
sisted on  provoking,  and  then  persisted  in  fighting,  America, 
he  nobly  justified  the  reputation  that  he  had  cheaply  won  by 
his  panegyrics  on  Luttrell  and  his  denunciations  of  Wilkes. 

But  those  eight  years  were  preceded  by  four  others  during 
which  the  public  doings  of  Charles  Fox  were  of  a  nature  to 
afford  more  amusement  than  profit  to  the  student  of  parlia- 
mentary history.  His  political  as  well  as  his  moral  wild  oats 
were  still  to  sow ;  and  he  set  himself  to  the  business  of  scat- 
tering them  broadcast  with  a  profusion  that  has  rarely  been 
equalled  in  the  case  of  the  latter  species,  and  never  in  that  of 
the  former.     With  the  levity  of  a  schoolboy,  the  self-reliance 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  247 

of  an  ex-prime-minister,  and  a  debating  faculty  which  might 
be  put  to  better  uses,  but  could  not  possibly  become  sharper 
or  swifter  than  it  was  already,  no  portent  at  once  so  formida- 
ble and  so  unaccountable  had  hitherto  been  witnessed  in  St. 
Stephen's.  The  noble  lord  who  steered  the  ship  of  the  state, 
and  whose  scientific  calculations  were  grievously  disturbed  by 
the  vagaries  of  such  a  meteor,  was  indefatigable,  as  long  as  he 
had  any  hope  of  success,  in  inducing  it  to  take  and  keep  a 
place  among  the  fixed  constellations.  It  was  evident  that 
something  would  have  to  be  found  for  a  young  gentleman 
who,  according  to  his  own  account  in  later  days,  was  on  his 
legs  at  least  once  every  evening,  and  who,  by  the  confession 
of  others,  never  sat  down  without  having  left  his  mark  upon 
the  discussion.  At  length,  on  the  nineteenth  of  February, 
1770,  when  many  hours  had  been  spent  in  threshing  out  a 
question  of  unusual  intricacy  connected  with  the  Middlesex 
election,  Wedderburn,  by  a  singularly  ingenious  and  well- 
timed  argument,  had  convinced  even  his  opponents  that  there 
was  no  precedent  for  the  course  recommended  by  the  govern- 
ment, in  a  matter  where  precedent  was  everything;  and  hon- 
orable members  were  just  settling  down  to  the  disagreeable 
conviction  that  they  would  have  to  vote  against  their  common- 
sense,  or  see  their  party  defeated,  when  Charles  Fox  started 
up,  and  produced  a  case  in  point  so  apt  and  recent  as  entirely 
to  cut  the  ground  from  under  Wedderburn.  The  House 
"roared  with  applause;"  the  king,  delighted  by  a  majority 
which  exceeded  his  most  sanguine  expectations,  begged  the 
prime-minister  to  give  him  the  particulars  of  a  debate  which 
had  been  crowned  by  so  brilliant  a  victory ;  and,  on  the  very 
day  after  his  Majesty  had  heard  Lord  North's  report  of  what 
had  passed,  a  new  writ  was  moved  for  the  borough  of  Mid- 
hurst  in  consequence  of  Mr.  Charles  Fox  having  been  appoint- 
ed a  junior  lord  of  the  Admiralty.1 

1  Fox's  patent  as  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  was  made  out  on  the  twenty- 
eighth  of  February,  1770.  Walpole  makes  Fox  confute  Wedderburn  on 
the  twenty-fifth  of  January ;  but  a  careful  comparison  of  his  narrative 
with  reports  of  the  debates  of  the  twenty-fifth  of  January  and  the  nine- 
teenth of  February  proves  almost  to  certainty  that  he  confused  the  dates. 


248  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  feelings  with  which  Lord  Holland 
watched  the  son  of  his  hopes,  while  not  yet  of  age,  fighting 
his  way  towards  the  enchanted  portals  of  office,  and  then 
reaching  out  his  hand  to  receive  a  prize  which  came  only  just 
too  late  to  be  a  birthday  present.  The  father's  letters  abound 
in  expressions  of  satisfaction  so  hearty  and  affectionate  as  to 
awaken  in  the  reader  an  evanescent  sympathy  even  for  the 
doleful  dissertations  on  the  guile  and  ingratitude  of  mankind 
with  which  those  letters  are  plentifully  interlarded.  "  The 
newspapers,  I  am  told,  have  forgot  me;"  so  the  old  gentle- 
man writes  to  Selwyn  from  Nice,  in  February,  1770.  "  You, 
I  see,  remember  me.  The  excessive  fine  weather  we  have 
here,  and  Charles's  fame,  have  certainly  for  some  days  past 
made  my  spirits  better  than  they  had  been  since  I  saw  you  ; 
and  yet  the  man  I  envy  most  is  the  late  lord  chamberlain, 
for  he  is  dead,  and  he  died  suddenly.  If  that  dog  Beckford 
should  be  dead,  I  must  not  envy  him;"  and  the  writer  then 
proceeds  to  put  forward,  as  the  ground  on  which  he  for- 
bore to  envy  Beckford,  certain  gloomy  probabilities  which, 
when  his  own  death  occurred,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  many 
were  uncharitable  enough  to  give  as  their  reason  for  not  en- 
vying Lord  Holland.  "I  told  you,"  he  says  again,  "that 
Charles's  fame  had  made  Lady  Holland  more  curious  about 
politics.  I  would  not  give  twopence  for  some  people's  opin- 
ion ;  but  what  I  wish  most  to  hear  is  Charles's  of  his  own 
speaking."  "  Your  panegyric  upon  Charles,"  so  runs  another 
passage,  "  came  about  an  hour  after  I  wrote  mine.  He  writes 
word  that  upon  February  the  twelfth  he  spoke  very  ill.  I  do 
not  mind  that ;  and  when  he  speaks  so  well  as  to  be,  as  Lady 
Mary  says,1  the  wonder  of  the  age,  it  does  not  give  me  so  much 
pleasure  as  what  you,  very  justly,  I  think,  tell  me  de  son  cceur. 

By  this  time  Walpole  was  no  longer  in  Parliament,  and  got  his  House  of 
Commons  information  at  second-hand. 

1  Lady  Mary  Fitzpatrick,  daughter  of  the  first  Earl  of  Upper  Ossory, 
married  Stephen  Fox  in  1766,  and  died  four  years  after  him,  in  1778. 
Her  own  letters,  and  every  allusion  made  to  her  in  the  letters  of  others, 
indicate  that  she  was  such  a  woman  as  all  who  knew  the  third  Lord  Hol- 
land would  suppose  his  mother  to  have  been. 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  EOX.  249 

And  yet  that  may  not  signify ;  for,  if  I  know  myself,  I  have 
been  honest  and  good-natured ;  nor  can  I  repent  of  it,  though 
convinced  now  that  honesty  is  not  the  best  policy,  and  that 
good-nature  does  not  meet  with  the  return  it  ought  to  do." 

Lord  Holland's  predictions  with  regard  to  Beckford's  future, 
and  his  lamentations  over  his  own  ill-requited  virtue,  had  their 
origin  from  one  and  the  same  source.  He  had  of  late  been 
much  exercised  by  the  conduct  of  certain  officious  individuals 
who  had  threatened  him  with  the  bailiffs  in  order  to  force  him 
to  explain  what  he  was  doing  with  the  large  sums  of  public 
money  that  still  remained  in  his  hands ;  and  he  was  yet  more 
seriously  disturbed  when  Eeckford,  as  Lord  Mayor  of  London, 
presented  the  king  with  a  petition  from  the  City  which,  after 
bringing  a  long  series  of  elaborate  accusations  against  the 
ministry,  disposed  of  the  ex-paymaster  in  a  single  half-sen- 
tence as  "  the  public  defaulter  of  unaccounted  millions."  If 
he  had  been  still  in  active  political  emplo}anent,  the  old  states- 
man would  not  have  given  the  charge  a  moment's  thought; 
Lfut  he  was  not  exempt  from  that  retrospective  sensitiveness 
which  is  generally  observable  in  men  of  ambition  and  energy 
who  have  been  elbowed  out  of  the  game,  and  reduced  to  live 
on  the  reminiscences  of  their  own  past.  After  a  correspond- 
ence with  Beckford,  maintained  on  his  side  in  a  tone  rather 
plaintive  and  indignant,  Lord  Holland  published  a  statement 
which  proved  incontestably  that  the  procrastination  in  making 
up  his  books  and  paying  in  his  balances,  with  which  he  had 
been  taunted  as  a  crime,  was  neither  illegal  nor  unusual.  But 
in  defending  himself  he  laid  bare  the  abuses  of  a  system 
which  might  well  make  an  economist  shudder ;  for  his  memo- 
randum disclosed  the  extraordinary  fact  that  the  country  did 
not  clear  accounts  with  the  chief  of  all  its  financial  agents  un- 
til those  accounts  were  at  least  half  a  generation  in  arrear. 
The  accounts  of  the  regiments  that  fought  for  George  the 
Second  at  Dettingen  and  Culloden  were  only  declared  a  few 
months  before  George  the  Third  ascended  the  throne.  The 
accounts  of  the  regiments  that  had  been  disbanded  after  the 
Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  during  the  summer  of  1748  had  not 
been  declared  at  the  time  that  Lord  Holland  was  writing  his 


250  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

exculpation  in  the  summer  of  1769.  It  was  therefore  unrea- 
sonable to  call  hard  names,  and  set  the  sheriff's  officer  to 
work,  because  the  accounts  of  the  regiments  which  had  se- 
cured America  to  the  British  Crown  at  Quebec  would  in  all 
likelihood  be  still  unsettled  when  Lord  North  and  his  royal 
master  had  succeeded  in  losing  the  best  part  of  what  Wolfe 
had  conquered.  But,  having  made  out  that  part  of  the  case 
which  told  in  his  favor,  the  calumniated  administrator  did  not 
think  it  necessary  to  remind  the  tax-payers  that  every  month 
during  which  the  audit  was  postponed  brought  into  his  pocket 
large  emoluments,  such  as,  even  in  his  own  day,  men  of  del- 
icacy scrupled,  and  high-minded  men  flatly  refused,  to  take. 
It  was  frequently  asserted  in  print,  and  has  never  been  con- 
tradicted, that,  to  say  nothing  of  what  he  gained  as  paymas- 
ter, the  interest  on  the  balances  which  were  outstanding  after 
he  left  office  made  Lord  Holland  and  Lord  Holland's  family 
richer  by  a  quarter  of  a  million  pounds ;  not  one  half-penny 
of  which  Chatham  would  have  condescended  to  touch  before 
him,  or  Burke  after  him.1 

1  Proceedings  against  the  ex-paymaster  had  been  actually  commenced 
in  the  Court  of  Exchequer,  and  were  only  stayed  by  a  warrant  from  the 
Crown.  Lord  Holland  addressed  a  pathetic,  if  rather  irregular,  commu- 
nication to  Baron  Smith,  who  may  probably  have  been  the  judge  before 
whom  his  cause  was  to  come  on  for  trial.  "  To  be  made,"  he  wrote,  "  so 
miserable  by  the  undeserved  abuse  I  meet  with,  your  lordship  says  is 
weakness.  But  if  my  being  held  up  to  all  England  as  one  of  the  great- 
est rascals  in  it  should  incline  Mr.  Baron  Smith  to  think  me  so,  your  lord- 
ship cannot  blame  me  if  I  wish  he  were  set  right.  Indeed,  my  lord,  it  is 
impossible  to  be  more  blameless  in  that  article  upon  which  Mr.  Horn, 
Mr.  Beckford,  every  newspaper,  and  all  England  have  accused  me.  Mr. 
Winnington's  executors  were  near  twenty  years  before  he  could  pass  his 
accounts.  Mr.  Pitt  was  fourteen  years  before  he  could  pass  his.  My 
Lord  Kinnoul  was  twelve  years,  though  he  had  but  two  years'  accounts 
to  pass.  Is  it  not  natural  to  suppose  that  the  difficulty  is  in  the  nature 
of  things,  and  no  fault  of  the  paymaster,  and  this  cruel  abuse  of  me  is 
really  for  not  being  forwarder  by  ten  years  than  anybody  else  was? 
Don't  let  Baron  Smith,  who,  I  hear,  is  a  worthy  man,  censure  me  for  what 
I  cannot  help,  and  let  him  know  to  what  an  infinite  degree,  and  your 
lordship  would  say  sillily,  I  feel  the  abuse  that  I  meet  with.  Charles  is 
my  secretary;  so  nobody  else  will  know  that  I  trouble  you  with  this." 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  251 

Lord  Holland  had  some  excuse  for  exclaiming  against  the 
injustice  of  an  unpopularity  which  time  did  not  mitigate,  and 
which  followed  him  into  the  seclusion  where  a  disgraced  min- 
ister has  the  right  to  look  at  least  for  safety.  When  he  appeal- 
ed from  the  relentless  hatred  with  which  he  was  regarded  by 
people  who  had  never  seen  him  except  through  the  window 
of  his  coach,  to  the  devoted  affection  which  he  obtained  from 
those  who  were  with  him  the  most,  and  who  knew  him  the 
best,  he  can  hardly  be  blamed  for  esteeming  himself  a  misun- 
derstood man.  While  the  City  was  still  demanding  his  im- 
peachment as  vociferously  as  it  had  demanded  the  impeach- 
ment of  Bolingbroke  and  Oxford  within  a  month  of  their  fall ; 
while  satirists  were  reproaching  Charles  Fox  on  his  parentage 
with  a  ferocity  which  might  have  scared  a  more  timid  parlia- 
mentary novice  and  alienated  a  less  loving  son1 — all  was  well, 
or,  at  any  rate,  well  enough  for  Lord  Holland,  in  the  home 
where  he  sought  for  the  repose  and  happiness  that  were  de- 
nied him  elsewhere.  It  is  no  wonder  that  he  was  endeared  to 
all  who  were  dependent  upon  him  for  their  welfare  and  con- 
tentment. "  He  had  that  temper  which  kind  folks  have  been 
pleased  to  say  belongs  to  our  family."  Such  was  the  testi- 
mony of  his  grandson  ;  and,  over  and  above  the  Fox  temper, 
Lord  Holland  was  largely  endowed  with  the  Fox  tact.  Like 
all  who  bore  a  name  which  the  language  of  society  has  raised 
to  the  dignity  of  a  laudatory  epithet,  he  was  entirely  free  from 
prosiness  and  pretension,  and  from  that  ambition  in  small 
things  which  will  make  cleverness  tiresome,  and  render  even 
genius  a  disagreeable  inmate  in  a  household.  Those  very 
qualities  which  have  earned  him  a  black  mark  in  history  had 
their  amiable  side  when  viewed  from  within  his  own  doors, 
and  contributed  to  the  domestic  comfort,  if  not  to  the  moral 

1  "  Welcome,  hereditary  worth ! 

No  doubt,  no  blush,  belies  thy  birth, 
Prone  as  the  infernal  fiends  to  evil. 
If  that  black  face  and  that  black  heart 
Be  not  old  Holland's  counterpart, 
Holland  himself 's  unlike  the  devil." 
Ode  to  St.  Stephen  (in  "  The  Foundling  for  Wit"  of  1772). 


252  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

advantage,  of  himself  and  of  those  with  whom  and  for  whom 
he  lived.  The  cynical  indifference  to  the  character  of  his  in- 
struments and  his  allies,  which  had  done  so  much  to  discredit 
him  as  a  statesman,  took  within  the  precincts  of  Holland 
House  the  form  of  an  inexhaustible  tolerance  which  exceeds 
all  recorded  instances  of  paternal  facility.  He  was  not  the 
father  to  quarrel  with  his  children  for  being  what  his  own  care- 
lessness had  made  them.1  He  asked,  as  he  had  a  right  to  ask, 
that  they  should  give  him  their  confidence ;  that  they  should 
be  at  ease  in  his  presence,  and  fight  his  battles  behind  his 
back;  that  they  should  share  with  him  some  of  their  innu- 
merable enjoyments,  and  sympathize  to  a  reasonable  extent 
with  his  richly  merited  grievances.  But  he  asked  nothing 
more.  As  long  as  Charles  would  treat  him  like  an  elder 
brother  (a  point  on  which  the  lad  indulged  him  without  in- 
fringing on  the  strictest  filial  respect,  or  abating  an  atom  of 
that  eager  and  minute  dutifulness  which  he  exhibited  in  all 
his  personal  relations),  he  was  welcome  to  do  as  he  pleased 
with  his  own  time  and  with  Lord  Holland's  money.  He 
might  be  the  talk  of  London  and  of  Paris  for  his  irregulari- 
ties and  extravagances ;  he  might  stuff  every  bill-case  in  the 
Minories  with  his  acceptances,  and  lose  in  a  night  the  proc- 
eeds of  a  twelvemonth's  jobbery  at  the  Pay-office ;  he  might 
fling  away  his  unequalled  political  chances  in  the  wantonness 
of  every  passing  impulse — if  only  he  would  write  to  his  father 
as  he  wrote  to  George  Selwyn,  and  talk  to  him  as  he  talked 
to  Lord  Carlisle ;  if  only  he  would  spare  him  an  evening  in 
the  week  to  discuss  the  odds  at  Newmarket,  and  laugh  over 
the  faces  which  were  pulled  on  the  Treasury  bench  when  the 
Junior  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  committed  ministers  to  a  policy 
of  which  they  heard  for  the  first  time  from  the  young  gentle- 
man's lips,  or  when  he  fell  tooth  and  nail  on  the  attorne}r- 

1  "  Who  ever  had  children,"  he  wrote  to  an  old  friend,  "  that  do  not, 
when  they  are  young  men,  do  what  their  father  had  rather  they  would 
not  do  ?  I  have  found  it,  dear  Mr.  Crawford,  in  a  very  essential  instance ; 
and,  memor  ilium  puerum  esse,  mefuisse,  I  acted  as  you  do ;  and  I  dare  say 
you  applaud  yourself  for  the  success  of  your  good-natured  behavior.  I 
do  not  regret  mine." 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  253 

general  with  a  mutinous  vigor  which  recalled  to  the  delighted 
sire  his  own  historical  onslaught  on  Lord  Hardwicke's  Mar- 
riage Bill. 

The  ugliest  of  all  the  features  in  Lord  Holland's  character 
acquired  a  softer  aspect  by  the  light  of  his  own  fireside.  His 
unsparing  and  unreasoning  generosity  to  his  children,  in  itself 
another  fault,  does  something  to  render  less  odious  the  rapac- 
ity for  which  he  is  proverbially  remembered.  Without  a 
spark  of  the  patriotism  which  dignified  the  selfishness  of 
Wolsey  and  the  cupidity  of  Marlborough,  he  regarded  the  in- 
terests of  the  nation  much  as  his  namesake  in  the  animal 
world  regards  the  interest  of  the  poultry-yard;  but  at  any 
rate  he  was  not,  like  the  great  soldier,  actuated  by  avarice,  nor, 
like  the  churchman,  by  a  passion  for  personal  display.  He 
plundered  the  many,  wThom  he  neither  hated  nor  loved,  in  or- 
der to  load  with  wealth  and  surfeit  with  pleasure  the  few  hu- 
man beings  for  whose  benefit  he  would  have  laid  down  his  life 
as  readily  and  as  lightly  as  he  sacrificed  his  conscience  and  his 
reputation.  When  Stephen  Fox  was  affianced  to  Lord  Ossory's 
daughter,  his  father  addressed  a  striking  and  pathetic  letter  to 
the  Duke  of  Bedford,  whose  kinswoman  the  lady  was.  "  I  am 
extremely  sensible,"  he  wrote,  "  of  the  honor  done  my  son, 
and  will  contribute  (besides  dying  very  soon)  to  what  may 
give  the  young  people  great  affluence ;"  and  there  was  a  wish 
as  well  as  a  prophecy  in  that  quaint  parenthesis.  "I  will 
come,"  he  added,  "  into  whatever  they  shall  propose."  Few, 
even  among  the  class  who  make  the  marriage  of  their  children 
an  opportunity  for  buying  a  step  of  social  promotion,  would 
bind  themselves  beforehand  by  so  liberal  a  pledge  when  deal- 
ing with  the  settlements  of  their  eldest  son ;  and  fewer  still, 
at  a  time  of  life  when  all  men  feel  the  value  of  money,  except 
those  who  have  never  made  or  kept  it,  would  allow  a  younger 
son,  and  such  a  specimen  of  a  younger  son  as  Charles  Fox,  to 
treat  his  father's  fortune  as  his  own. 

In  February,  1770,  that  fortune,  though  not  intact,  was  still 
enormous.  With  all  the  will  in  the  world,  the  young  man  had 
wanted  the  time  to  make  any  serious  impression  upon  the 
mountain  of  wealth  out  of  which  Lord  Holland  fondly  ex- 


254:  THE   EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

pected  to  carve  him  a  patrimony  greater  than  was  enjoyed  by 
half  the  peerage.  The  Kensington  estate  was  to  go  with  the 
title ;  but  Charles  was  carefully  instructed  to  regard  himself 
as  the  future  master  of  a  country  retreat  which  his  father 
loved  with  the  absorbing  and  tenacious  affection  which  he 
cherished  towards  everything  and  everybody  that  he  loved  at 
all,  and  on  which,  fortunately  for  Holland  House,  he  had  con- 
centrated his  architectural  industry,  and  tested  his  theories  of 
classical  and  romantic  decoration.  At  the  extreme  point  of 
the  Kentish  coast,  a  little  more  than  half  a  mile  from  the 
North  Foreland,  there  runs  down  to  the  sea  a  dell  which  in 
the  days  of  the  Stuarts  was  secured  against  smugglers  and  pri- 
vateers by  a  rampart  and  a  portcullis.  The  place  owed  its 
designation  of  King's  Gate  Stairs  to  a  chance  visit  of  Charles 
the  Second,  who,  on  his  way  between  London  and  Dover,  once 
passed  a  few  minutes  on  a  spot  which  was  destined  to  be  the 
nursery  of  an  offshoot  of  royalty  whom,  both  for  his  merits 
and  his  failings,  the  monarch  would  have  been  proud  to  ac- 
knowledge as  a  descendant.  On  this  site,  so  exquisitely  adapt- 
ed to  recall  the  languors  of  the  Caietan  Gulf,  Lord  Holland 
had  built  himself  a  habitation  which  purported  "to  represent 
Tully's  Formian  villa."  He  fitted  up  the  house  with  genuine 
antiquities,  which  soon  came  to  the  hammer ;  and  planted  the 
whole  neighborhood,  far  and  near,  with  sham  castles  and  ab- 
beys which  have  since  been  converted  to  homely  uses,  and  re- 
christened  with  still  homelier  names.  King's  Gate,  in  every 
particular,  was  exactly  to  its  owner's  taste.  There  (an  advan- 
tage which,  with  much  reason,  he  placed  foremost  among  the 
attractions  of  the  home  that  he  had  chosen)  he  could  forget 
himself,  and  hope  that  he  was  forgotten  by  others.  There,  as 
he  wrote  to  Lord  Shelburne  before  their  quarrel,  sea  air  gave 
him  "  appetite,  sleep,  and  spirits."  There  he  was  "  very  happy 
and  amused  with  trifles  that  lead  to  nothing  sad  and  serious." 
He  never  tired  of  riding  about  the  country,  directing  the 
progress  of  undertakings  that  stood  him  instead  of  those  ru- 
ral occupations  which  he  was  too  much  of  a  Londoner  to  ap- 
preciate. While  Burke  was  making  money  by  selling  his  car- 
rots, and  losing  it  by  giving  them  to  his  live-stock ;   while 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  255 

Chatham  watched  his  trees  with  the  eye  of  a  woodman,  and 
made  a  shift  to  keep  within  hearing  of  the  chase  when  the 
boys  took  the  field  with  their  harriers — Lord  Holland  was 
training  ivy  over  his  turrets  and  cloisters ;  mounting  cannons 
along  the  cliff ;  raffling  for  statues  of  Flora  and  Bacchus,  and 
busts  of  Pertinax  and  Crispina ;  excavating  burial-mounds ; 
rearing  a  pillar  to  commemorate  a  battle  between  Danes  and 
Saxons  which  in  all  likelihood  never  had  been  fought ;  and 
erecting  a  tower  "  in  the  Roman  style  "  in  honor  of  an  anti- 
Wilkite  lord  mayor  of  London  who  had  probably  earned  his 
monument  by  throwing  cold  water  on  the  demand  for  an  in- 
quiry into  the  paymaster's  accounts.1 

So  absorbed  had  been  Lord  Holland  in  the  place  which  he 
was  creating  that  the  last  and  heaviest  blow  of  fortune,  his 
ejection  from  the  Pay-office,  fell  lightly  upon  him  because  he 
was  at  King's  Gate  when  the  news  arrived.  "  It  comes  chiefly, 
I  understand,  from  the  Bedfords,"  so  he  wrote  to  his  wife ; 
"  which  is  as  it  should  be,  for  there  is  not  one  of  them  that  is 
not  greatly  obliged  to  me.  Now,  my  dear  Caroline,  let  us  con- 
sider how  this  affects  us.  There  is  an  end  of  every  view ;  but 
then  there  is  not  any  we  had  all  set  our  hearts  on.  I  should 
have  liked  to  be  an  earl ;  but  indeed  I  should  be  ashamed  if 
at  my  age  I  could  not  give  up  that  with  the  utmost  ease. 
What,  then,  have  we  to  regret  ?    You  never  thought  of  a  court 

1  This  edifice,  raised,  in  other  than  the  Roman  style,  to  a  height  which 
qualifies  it  to  serve  as  a  sea-mark,  now  goes  by  the  appellation  of  "  Can- 
dlestick Tower."  "  My  tower  in  honor  of  Mr.  Harley,"  wrote  Lord  Hol- 
land, "  is  built,  I  believe,  more  for  my  private  amusement  than  from  pub- 
lic spirit ;  but  he  is  really  almost  the  only  man  that  has  not  been  a  cow- 
ard." Lord  Holland  embodied  his  gratitude  to  the  Tory  lord  mayor  in 
an  inscription  drawn  from  Horace : 

"  Justum  et  tenacem  propositi  viruni 
Non  civium  ardor  prava  jubentium 
Mente  quatit  solida." 

It  does  not  need  a  very  profound  scholar  to  detect  the  hiatus  in  the  stan- 
za, and  to  understand  the  reason  of  it.  The  same  most  significant  omis- 
sion may  be  observed  under  a  bust  of  Lord  Eldon  which  has  been  ban- 
ished into  an  obscure  corner  of  the  Chancery  offices. 


25G  THE   EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

life,  and  neither  my  health  nor  age  would  have  admitted  of 
politics.  It  seems,  then,  that  this  only  leads  to  the  life  we 
must  and  should  have  led.  We  shall  have  money  enough  for 
everything  but  gaming,  and  nothing  were  sufficient  for  that. 
You'll  live  at  your  favorite  Holland  House  a  good  deal,  and 
little  more  than  the  four  hot  months  will  suffice  for  me  here. 
How  will  it  affect  the  children  ?  I  hope  not  at  all.  This  does 
not  hinder  Ste  from  having  the  world  before  him.  Charles 
will  be  angry,  I  believe;  but  at  his  age  it  will  do  him  no 
harm,  and  he  may  be  the  more  egged  on  by  it.  May  I  not 
build  on  him  for  my  hours  of  comfort  ?  Harry  is  too  young 
and  happy  ever  to  know  of  this.  He  is  the  happiest  of  mor- 
tals, and  gone  to  show  Lords  Ilchester  and  Bateman  the  Mar- 
gate sands,  while  I  am  writing  in  a  room  prettier  than  you  can 
imagine.  Well,  Caroline,  I  don't  think  you  need,  or  will,  turn 
your  eyes  from  this  prospect."  Three  days  afterwards  he 
wrote :  "  Harry  has  a  little  horse  to  ride,  and  his  whole  stable- 
f ul  to  look  after.  He  lives  with  the  horse  ;  stinks,  talks,  and 
thinks  perpetually  of  the  stable ;  and  is  not  a  very  good  com- 
panion. Now  the  others  are  gone,  I  shall  try  to  make  him 
more  so.  He  has  just  found  out  that  I  am  turned  out,  and,  you 
may  be  sure,  don't  care  a  farthing ;  but  he  has  been  so  intent 
upon  his  horses  that  though,  he  must  have  heard  it  mentioned 
a  hundred  times  since  Saturday,  it  was  not  to  his  purpose,  and 
he  never  heeded  it.  After  the  stable  was  shut  up  last  night, 
he  came  of  his  own  accord,  and  read  very  prettily  some 
words.  We  shall  be  at  a  loss  what  to  read,  I  find.  I  wish 
you  could  advise." 

This  letter  was  written  in  May,  1764,  and  twelve  years  af- 
terwards, unfortunately  for  his  happiness  and  dignity,  Lord 
Holland  was  still  hankering  after  that  step  in  the  peerage 
which  he  had  so  confidently  professed  to  have  renounced.  In 
August,  1772,  excited  at  seeing  the  prize  which  had  so  often 
been  refused  him  conferred  on  two  of  his  brother-barons,  he 
commissioned  Charles  to  lay  his  claims  before  the  prime-min- 
ister. North  dared  not  himself  inflict  a  rebuff  upon  a  member 
of  Parliafnent  who  just  at  that  time  was  the  most  formidable 
of  free  lances ;  but  the  king,  who  disliked  the  young  orator 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  257 

more  than  he  feared  him,  sent  word  "  that  the  door  was  now 
shut,  and  that  for  the  present  no  more  earldoms  would  be 
granted."  Then,  as  a  last  hope,  Lord  Holland  had  recourse 
to  Bute,  and  dictated  a  piteous  letter  reminding  his  ancient 
confederate  of  those  services  which,  if  the  voice  of  the  coun- 
try had  been  taken,  would  have  been  rewarded  by  a  very  dif- 
ferent sort  of  elevation  from  that  which  he  coveted.1  "Do 
you  remember,"  he  asked,  "you  who  never  deceived  me, 
when  you  told  me  if  I  asked  anything  for  my  children  I 
should  see  the  esteem  the  king  had  for  me  ?  I  see  no  signs 
of  it."  Bute  replied  kindly,  but  decisively.  "  The  very  few 
opportunities  I  have  had  for  many  years,"  he  said,  "  of  being 
of  the  least  service  to  any  person  are  now  at  an  end.  The  sad 
event  of  this  fatal  year  has  left  me  without  a  single  friend 
near  the  royal  person,2  and  I  have  taken  the  only  part  suited 
to  my  way  of  thinking — that  of  retiring  from  the  world  be- 
fore it  retires  from  me."  Lord  Holland  had  now  nothing  for 
it  but  to  follow  the  advice  and  example  which  Bute  had  given 
him ;  and,  late  and  perforce,  he  sought  consolation  and  em- 
ployment for  the  evening  of  life  in  pursuits  more  Congenial 
to  his  better  nature  than  an  unprofitable  and  unacceptable  at- 
tendance at  St.  James's.  He  was,  and  always  had  been  when 
he  cared  for  it,  one  of  those  who  had  admission  to  a  yet  more 
privileged  circle. 

"  That  place  that  does  contain 
My  books,  the  best  companions,  is  to  me 
A  glorious  court,  where  hourly  I  converse 
With  the  old  sages  and  philosophers." 


1  Mason,  in  his  "  Heroic  Epistle,"  proposed  to  construct  a  sort  of  polit- 
ical Chamber  of  Horrors,  containing  a  row  of  scaffolds : 

"  On  this  shall  Holland's  dying  speech  be  read ; 
Here  Bute's  confession,  and  his  wooden  head. 
While  all  the  minor  plunderers  of  the  age, 
Too  numerous  for  this  contracted  page, 
The  Rigbys,  Mungos,  and  the  Bradshaws  there 
In  straw-stuffed  effigy  shall  kick  the  air." 

2  The  princess-dowager  had  died  in  the  preceding  February. 

17 


258  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

His  letters  thenceforward  are  marked  by  an  unvarying  tone 
of  serenity  and  resignation.  "  I  have  lost,"  he  writes,  "  for 
more  than  three  months  past  every  symptom  of  an  asthma, 
every  apprehension  of  a  dropsy.  My  distemper  is  old  age ; 
and,  good  physician  as  you  are,  dear  Ellis,  you  cannot  cure  me 
of  that."  "  I  rise  from  a  very  good  night,"  he  tells  Lady  Car- 
oline from  King's  Gate ;  "  as  mine  almost  without  exception 
have  been  here.  As  you  truly  say,  life  is  only  a  reprieve." 
"  I  talk,"  he  remarks  elsewhere,  "  a  good  deal  of  cheerful  non- 
sense in  a  day,  and  in  every  day.  The  truth  is  that  I  divert 
myself,  yet  cannot  help  thinking  very  often  that  it  were  bet- 
ter it  were  all  over." 

King's  Gate  is  a  standing  evidence  of  the  faint  impression 
which  the  eighteenth  century  has  left  upon  the  imagination 
of  our  people.  If  anything  connected  with  the  worthies  of  the 
Reformation  or  the  heroes  of  the  Long  Parliament — anything 
so  absolutely  unaltered  and  so  intensely  characteristic  of  the 
ideas  and  manners  of  the  time — stood  sixty  miles  from  Lon- 
don, and  within  a  walk  of  two  crowded  watering-places,  its 
name  wduld  be  a  household  word  in  every  educated  family  of 
the  kingdom.  And  indeed  the  tourist,  as  he  turns  the  summit 
of  the  ascent  that  is  crowned  by  the  North  Foreland  light- 
house, wonders  for  a  moment  that  the  striking  and  singular 
prospect  which  lies  below  him  should  not  have  taken  rank 
among  the  noted  localities  of  our  island.  But,  as  he  continues 
to  gaze  and  begins  to  reflect,  he  is  forced  to  confess  that  the 
hand  of  man  has  spoiled  the  desolate  grandeur  of  the  scene 
without  adding  to  it  the  charms  of  association.  The  instinct 
of  the  least  practised  antiquarian  tells  him  at  a  second  glance 
that  the  castle,  which  rears  itself  in  such  bold  relief  against 
the  perfect  whiteness  of  the  more  distant  cliff,  was  planted 
there  long  since  the  days  when  even  so  unpopular  a  baron  as 
Lord  Holland  wanted  a  castle  to  protect  him ;  while  the  Tow- 
er of  Neptune,  perched  on  the  bastion  that  guards  the  other 
flank  of  the  little  ba}7,  and  the  detached  fragments  of  ruin, 
thrown  in  wherever  they  are  demanded  by  the  principles  of 
the  picturesque,  give  to  a  point  of  our  coast  which  has  some 
claims  of  its  own  to  be  the  most  famous  headland  in  the  world, 
an  air  of  masquerading  as  the  promontory  of  Sunium. 


Chap.  VII. ]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  259 

But,  as  we  descend  the  hill,  the  absurdities  of  the  higher 
ground  are  lost  to  view,  and  the  genuine  interest  of  the  spot 
makes  itself  insensibly  and  irresisnDiy  felt.  Lord  Holland, 
though  bound  as  a  man  of  taste  to  erect  castles,  was  far  too 
much  a  man  of  sense  to  inhabit  them.  Right  across  the  mouth 
of  the  tiny  valley,  filling  it  from  bank  to  bank  with  its  square 
main  building  and  formal  wings — most  conspicuous  to  sea- 
ward, but  curiously  invisible  from  the  land — there  spreads 
itself  an  ugly,  comfortable  mansion  which  now,  together  with 
other  heterogeneous  inmates,  lodges  a  party  of  coast-guards- 
men and  their  officer.  The  glen  behind  the  house  runs  gradu- 
ally up  into  the  plain,  densely  overgrown  with  stunted  wind- 
stricken  timber,  worthless  enough  to  be  secure  even  under 
such  a  master  as  Charles  Fox ;  and  in  front  a  platform,  fifty 
yards  in  width,  separates  the  facade  from  the  edge  of  the  cliff, 
which  just  there  is  hardly  forty  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
beach.  The  narrow  gap  in  the  dwarf  precipice,  which  gives 
the  place  its  name,  is  cut  in  two  by  an  isolated  curtain  of 
chalk,  of  about  the  height  and  thickness  of  a  garden  wall, 
leaving  on  either  side  a  passage,  in  appearance  rather  a  chim- 
ney than  a  road,  which  affords  a  somewhat  perilous  access  to 
the  shingle  beneath.  Other  corners  of  England,  and  perhaps 
many  others,  possess  reminiscences  more  inspiring,  but  none 
more  enlivening  and  authentic.  Down  that  little  pathway 
through  the  chalk  has  often  tripped  the  heroine  of  as  pleasant 
and  innocent  a  royal  romance  as  any  in  our  history ;  and,  pac- 
ing up  and  down  that  strip  of  gravel,  or  seated  on  the  sills  of 
those  unsightly  but  hospitable  windows,  lounged  and  chatted, 
a  hundred  years  ago  and  more,  a  group  of  friends  and  cousins 
as  merry,  as  affectionate,  as  easily  and,  it  may  be,  as  inexcusa- 
bly contented  with  each  other  and  themselves  as  ever  were 
gathered  together  for  Christmas  sports  and  summer  idleness 
— a  group  of  which  the  leader  and  the  idol  was  the  lad  who 
already  bade  fair  to  be  the  greatest  known  master  of  the  art 
in  which,  of  all  arts,  an  Englishman  covets  to  excel.1    To  Lord 

1  "  Brougham  is  quite  right  about  Charles  Fox,"  said  Macaulay.     "  He 
was,  indeed,  a  great  orator ;  but  then  he  was  the  great  debater." 


260  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIL 

Holland  himself  the  situation  of  King's  Gate  had  peculiar  ad- 
vantages. It  was  no  slight  convenience  for  an  elderly  valetu- 
dinarian to  embark  at  his  own  front  door  on  those  foreign 
tours  which,  since  he  left  office,  had  become  the  most  advent- 
urous of  his  enterprises ;  and  he  saved  some  expense,  and 
much  risk  of  irreparable  damage,  by  shipping  the  Etruscan 
vases  and  Eoman  altars,  which  then  were  the  spoils  of  travel, 
straight  from  Leghorn  or  the  Chiaja  to  his  own  private  land- 
ing-place. "  All  my  things,"  he  says  to  Charles,  in  July,  1767, 
"have  come  from  Naples.  I  shall  make  King's  Gate  very 
pretty  for  you,  and  have  almost  fixed  upon  a  plan  for  a  new 
house,  where  I  hope  you  will  spend  many  happy  hours  after  I 
am  dead  and  gone.  I  hope  to  spend  a  few  with  you  soon ; 
and,  upon  my  word,  I  think  of  none  with  anything  like  pleas- 
ure but  those  I  love,  and  you  most  sincerely." 

That  part  of  Lord  Holland's  prayer  which  related  to  the 
immediate  future  was  abundantly  and  agreeably  fulfilled. 
Charles,  during  the  seven  years  that  his  father  still  had  to 
live,  spent  at  King's  Gate  many  of  his  most  profitable  and 
his  happiest  hours;  if,  indeed,  for  such  a  nature  one  hour 
could  be  perceptibly  happier  than  another.  Here  he  laid  the 
foundation  of  his  profound  and  extensive  acquaintance  with 
history,  a  department  of  knowledge  in  which  he  was  ere  long 
reputed  to  stand  on  a  level  with  Burke,  and  (which,  indeed, 
was  not  difficult)  to  be  greatly  the  superior  of  Johnson.  But 
the  spirit  in  which,  while  still  a  colleague  of  Sandwich  and  of 
Halifax,  Charles  Fox  imbibed  his  constitutional  learning  was 
very  different  from  the  spirit  in  which  he  was  one  day  to 
utilize  it  as  the  vindicator  of  personal  liberty,  and  the  creator 
of  our  freedom  of  the  press.  "  I  am  reading  Clarendon,"  he 
writes  from  King's  Gate  to  George  Selwyn  in  1771,  "  but 
scarcely  get  on  faster  than  you  did  with  your  '  Charles  the 
Fifth.'  I  think  the  style  bad,  and  that  he  has  a  good  deal  of 
the  old  woman  in  his  way  of  thinking,  but  hate  the  opposite 
party  so  much  that  it  gives  one  a  kind  of  partiality  for  him :" 
strange  words  to  fall  from  the  pen  of  one  whose  bust  now 
looks  down  from  beneath  the  centre  of  the  cornice  in  half  the 
Whig  libraries  in  the  kingdom.    At  King's  Gate,  too,  he  con- 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  2G1 

tinued  that  minute  and  all-embracing  study  of  the  classics 
which  enabled  him  to  hold. his  own,  and  more  than  his  own, 
with  such  a  bookworm  as  Gilbert  Wakefield  on  the  most  deli- 
cate points  of  scholarship  which  lurked  unsolved  in  the  least 
frequented  nooks  of  ancient  literature.  One  of  his  favorite, 
and  certainly  his  cheapest,  amusements  was  to  turn  over  Apol- 
lonius  Rhodius  in  search  of  passages  containing  hints  which 
had  been  improved  upon  by  greater  poets.1  And  in  the  very 
lowest  depths  of  his  political  misfortunes  he  found  consola- 
tion in  jesting  at  his  own  expense  out  of  the  "  Cassandra"  of 
Lycophron — a  work  which,  in  a  generation  of  grammarians 
and  commentators  who  valued  books  primarily  for  their  ob- 
scurity, had  obtained  for  its  author  the  distinguishing  epithet 
of  "  the  obscure." 

But  Charles  Fox  had  nothing  of  a  pedant  except  the  ac- 
quirements. His  vast  and  varied  mass  of  erudition,  far  ex- 
ceeding that  of  many  men  who  have  been  famous  for  nothing 
else,  was  all  aglow  with  the  intense  vitality  of  his  eager  and 
brilliant  intellect.  He  trod  with  a  sure  step  through  the 
treasure-house  of  antiquity,  guided  by  a  keenness  of  insight 
into  the  sentiments  and  the  circumstances  of  the  remote  past 


1  Fox  esteemed  the  "  Argonautics  "  for  their  own  sake,  as  well  as  for  the 
obligations  under  which  Ovid  and  Virgil  lay  with  regard  to  them.  "  Your 
notion,"  he  wrote  to  Wakefield,  "  in  respect  to  poets  borrowing  from  each 
other  seems  almost  to  come  up  to  mine,  who  have  often  been  laughed  at 
by  my  friends  as  a  systematic  defender  of  plagiarism.  I  got  Lord  Hol- 
land, when  a  schoolboy,  to  write  some  verses  in  praise  of  it ;  and,  in  truth, 
the  greatest  poets  have  been  most  guilty,  if  guilt  there  be,  in  these  mat- 
ters. But  there  are  some  parts  of  Apollonius,  such  as  lib.  iii.  from  453 
to  463,  and  from  807  to  816,  that  appear  to  me  unrivalled."  "  I  looked," 
notes  Macaulay,  "  at  these  passages,  and  was  pleased  to  find  that  I  had 
marked  them  both  when  I  read  Apollonius  Rhodius  at  Calcutta.  The 
second  I  had  marked  exactly  to  a  line."  The  two  Whigs  read  their 
classics  with  the  same  eyes.  Macaulay's  favorite  morsels  in  Latin  were 
the  letters  in  which  Caesar  expressed  his  clemency  towards  his  conquered 
enemies ;  and  those  letters  were  quite  as  much  to  the  taste  of  Fox.  When 
the  Duke  of  Enghien  was  arrested,  Fox  copied  out  the  Epistle  to  Oppius, 
with  the  intention  of  sending  it  to  Napoleon,  but  was  prevented  by  the 
arrival  of  the  fatal  news. 


THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

which,  in  an  epoch  of  criticism  far  less  in  sympathy  with 
either  Athenian  or  Eoman  feeling  than  our  own,  amounted  to 
little  short  of  positive  inspiration.  With  an  appetite  to  which 
nothing  came  amiss,  he  possessed  a  taste  that  was  all  but  in- 
fallible. He  could  derive  pleasure  and  profit  out  of  anything 
written  in  Greek  or  Latin,  from  a  philippic  of  Cicero  or 
Demosthenes  to  an  excursus  by  Casaubon ;  but  he  reserved 
his  allegiance  for  the  true  sovereigns  of  literature.  That 
dramatist  who  is  the  special  delight  of  the  mature  and  the 
experienced  was  his  idol  from  the  very  first.  "Euripides," 
he  would  say,  "  is  the  most  precious  thing  left  us — the  most 
like  Shakespeare ;"  and  he  knew  him  as  Shakespeare  was 
known  to  Charles  Lamb  and  to  Coleridge.  "  Head  him,"  he 
enjoined  on  young  Lord  Holland,  "till  you  love  his  very 
faults."  He  went  through  the  "  Iliad  "  and  the  "  Odyssey  " 
more  than  once  a  year ;  and,  while  he  counted  every  omitted 
digamma,  and  was  always  ready  to  cover  four  sides  of  letter- 
paper  with  a  disquisition  on  Homeric  prosody  or  chronology, 
there  is  ample  proof  that,  as  far  as  feeling  and  observation 
were  concerned,  he  had  anticipated  that  exquisite  vein  of 
criticism  which  is  the  special  charm  of  the  most  charming 
portion  of  Mr.  Ruskin's  writings.1     Next  to  Homer  among 

1  Casual  remarks  which  might  be  the  text  for  disquisitions  on  Homer 
resembling  those  which  help  to  render  the  third  volume  of  "Modern 
Painters"  incomparable  among  productions  of  its  class  are  scattered 
thick  through  Fox's  talk  and  letters.  His  notice  of  the  bard's  dislike  of 
Hercules ;  of  his  tenderness  to  all  women  except  those  good-for-nothing 
hussies  at  the  Court  of  Ithaca  who  had  insulted  a  better  woman  than 
themselves ;  of  the  ghastly  episode  at  the  Suitors'  banquet,  where,  as  he 
truly  says,  second-sight  is  treated  with  a  power  unrivalled  by  the  poets 
of  the  country  in  which  that  unpleasant  gift  is  supposed  to  be  indige- 
nous ;  his  observation  of  the  circumstance  that  Homer  never  mentions 
the  singing  of  birds,  and  that  Penelope  cannot  bring  herself  to  speak  of 
Troy  or  of  Ulysses  by  name— are  symptoms  indicative  of  the  spirit  in 
which  Fox  studied  his  "  Odyssey."  When  asked  the  question  which  all 
literary  people  have  been  asking  each  other  since  the  days  of  Pisistratus, 
"  I  would  not,"  he  replied,  "  say  I  would  rather  have  written  the  '  Odys- 
sey,' but  I  know  that  I  would  rather  read  it.  I  believe  it  to  be  the  first 
tale  in  the  world." 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  263 

the  ancients — and  even  above  Homer,  at  the  period  to  which 
this  chapter  refers — Fox  placed  Virgil,  whose  pathos  (so  he 
declared)  surpassed  that  of  all  poets  of  every  age  and  nation, 
with  the  single  exception  which,  as  an  Englishman  with  the 
Elizabethan  drama  at  his  fingers'  ends,  he  somewhat  unwill- 
ingly considered  himself  bound  to  make.  "  It  is  on  that  ac- 
count," he  continued,  "  that  I  rank  him  so  very  high ;  for 
surely  to  excel  in  that  style  which  speaks  to  the  heart  is  the 
greatest  of  all  excellence."  His  favorite  example  of  the  qual- 
ity that  he  admired  in  the  "JEneid"  was  the  farewell  with 
which  the  aged  Evander  sent  Pallas  forth  to  his  last  battle. 
The  beauty  of  this  passage,  in  his  years  of  vigor,  Fox  was  al- 
ways ready  to  expound  and  assert ;  and  when  his  time  came  to 
die,  he  solemnized  his  parting  with  the  nephew  whom  he  loved 
as  a  son  by  bidding  the  young  man  repeat  aloud,  and  then  re- 
peat once  more,  lines  which,  even  at  a  less  trying  moment,  few 
who  have  ever  cried  over  a  book  can  read  without  tears.1 

That  was  the  last  poetry  to  which  Fox  is  known  to  have 
listened ;  and  the  fact  is  worth  recording,  because  poetry  was 
to  him  what  it  has  been  to  no  one  who  has  ever  played  a  part 
at  all  comparable  to  his  in  the  sterner  and  coarser  business  of 
the  world.  Poetry  was  in  his  eyes  "  the  great  refreshment 
of  the  human  mind,"  "  the  only  thing  after  all."  It  was  by 
making  and  enjoying  it  that  men  "first  discovered  themselves 
to  be  rational  beings ;"  and  even  among  the  Whigs  he  would 
allow  the  existence  of  only  one  right-thinking  politician  who 
was  not  a  lover  of  poetiy.  Literature  was  uin  every  point 
of  view  a  preferable  occupation  to  politics."  Statesmanship 
might  be  a  respectable  calling;  but  poetry  claimed  seven  of 
the  Muses,  and  oratory  none.  The  poets  wrote  the  best 
prose.  The  poets  had  more  truth  in  them  than  all  the  his- 
torians and  philosophers  together.  Much  as  he  admired  John- 
son's "Lives"  (and,  except  the  Church  Service,  that  book  was 


1  The  uncle  and  nephew  at  times  almost  conversed  in  Virgil.  When 
Fox  was  suffering  under  the  dropsy  which  killed  him,  Lord  Holland 
tried  to  cheer  him  with  "  Dabit  Deus  his  quoque  Jinem."  "  Ay,"  he  re- 
plied, with  a  faint  smile ;  "  but '  finem,'  young  one,  may  have  two  senses." 


264:  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VII. 

the  last  which  was  read  to  him),  he  never  could  forgive  the 
author  for  his  disloyalty  to  some  among  the  most  eminent  of 
his  heroes.  "  His  treatment,"  cried  Fox,  "  of  Gray,  Waller, 
and  Prior  is  abominable ;  especially  of  Gray.  As  for  me,  I 
love  all  the  poets."  And  well  did  they  repay  his  affection. 
They  consoled  him  for  having  missed  everything  upon  which 
his  heart  was  set,  and  to  the  attainment  of  which  the  labor  of 
his  life  was  directed ;  for  the  loss  of  power  and  of  fortune ; 
for  his  all  but  permanent  exclusion  from  the  privilege  of  serv- 
ing his  country  and  the  opportunity  of  benefiting  his  friends ; 
even  for  the  extinction  of  that  which  Burke,  speaking  from  a 
long  and  intimate  knowledge  of  his  disposition,  most  correctly 
called  "  his  darling  popularity."  At  the  time  when,  for  the 
crime  of  maintaining  that  the  Revolution  of  1688  had  placed 
our  Constitution  upon  a  popular  basis,  he  had  been  struck  off 
the  privy  council,  and  had  been  threatened  with  the  Tower; 
when  he  never  went  down  to  Westminster  except  to  be  hope- 
lessly outvoted,  or  looked  into  a  book-shop  or  print-shop  with- 
out seeing  himself  ferociously  lampooned  and  filthily  carica- 
tured, there  yet  was  no  more  contented  man  than  he  through- 
out all  that  broad  England  for  whose  liberties  he  suffered. 
He  could  forget  the  insolence  of  Dundas,  and  the  chicanery 
of  Sir  John  Scott,  while  intent  upon  the  debate  which  Belial 
and  Mammon  conducted  in  a  senate-house  less  agreeable  to 
its  inmates  even  than  the  House  of  Commons  of  1798  was  to 
the  Whigs ;  and  although  it  was  less  easy  to  efface  from  his 
recollection  the  miseries  which  were  endured  by  humbler 
patriots  than  himself,  yet  the  wrongs  of  Muir  and  Palmer 
and  Wakefield  and  Priestley  lost  something  of  their  sting  to 
one  who  could  divert  at  will  the  current  of  his  indignation 
against  the  despot  who  imprisoned  Tasso,  and  the  roisterers 
who  affronted  Milton.  And  whenever  things  were  for  a  mo- 
ment too  hard,  on  him — when  he  returned  to  his  country 
home  fretted  by  injustice  and  worn  by  turmoil — his  wife  had 
only  to  take  down  a  volume  of  "  Don  Quixote  "  or  "  Gil  Bias," 
and  read  to  him  until  his  mind  was  again  in  tune  for  the  so- 
ciety of  Spenser  and  Metastasio.1 

1  Fox  liked  one  poem  of  Metastasio  as  well  as  anything  of  the  century, 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  265 

If,  at  the  period  when  he  was  the  greatest  living  master  of 
the  plain  and  work-a-day  English  which  Englishmen  speak 
over  the  conduct  of  their  business,  he  continued  to  draw  his 
inspiration  chiefly  from  the  ancient  fountains,  it  is  not  strange 
that  he  should  have  preferred  the  classics  to  the  moderns  dur- 
ing the  years  when  life  still  appears  to  its  possessor  rather  a 
romance  than  a  reality.  And,  in  truth,  he  had  little  choice 
in  the  matter.  It  was  through  no  prejudice  against  his  con- 
temporaries that,  in  his  quest  of  the  beautiful  and  the  pa- 
thetic, Fox  was  forced  to  resort  to  Chaucer  and  Dante,  and 
Cowley  and  Filicaja.  Unlike  some  other  famous  Whigs,  he 
carried  his  Whig  principles  into  his  library ;  and,  while  tena- 
cious of  all  that  was  worth  preserving  in  the  literature  of  the 
past,  he  gave  every  possible  proof  of  his  readiness  to  welcome 
what  was  good  in  the  present.  He  overrated  Anstey.  He 
even  made  the  best  of  Hayley.1  He  wras  forever  quoting 
frigid  passages  from  Gray,  which,  if  Gray  had  been  dead  a 
century,  he  would  assuredly  have  allowed  to  slumber  in  their 
context.2  He  tried  hard  to  read  Mickle's  translation  of  Ca- 
moens ;  and  when  his  physical  strength  was  already  on  the 
turn,  he  struggled  valiantly  through  "Madoc ;"  though  his  per- 

and  one  book  of  Spenser  as  well  as  anything  in  the  world.  During  a 
single  winter,  in  addition  to  his  daily  and  almost  day-long  private 
studies,  he  read  aloud  to  Mrs.  Fox,  Tasso,  Ariosto,  Milton,  Spenser,  Apol- 
lonius  Rhodius,  Lucretius,  Virgil,  and  Homer,  nine  epic  poems,  according 
to  his  own  count.  Two  of  them,  he  said,  whatever  their  other  merits, 
were  far  and  away  the  most  entertaining — the  "Odyssey"  and  the  "Or- 
lando Furioso." 

1  "  I  think,"  Fox  wrote  to  the  third  Lord  Holland,  "  that  you  hold  poor 
Hayley  too  cheap.  His  '  History  of  Old  Maids,'  and  parts  of  the  '  Trials 
of  Temper,'  are,  I  think,  very  good." 

2  "  His  face  brightened  and  his  voice  rose  "  as  he  repeated  the  descrip- 
tions of  nature  in  Gray's  "Fragment  on  the  Alliance  of  Education  and 
Government."     But  when  he  came  to  the  point  where 

"  The  blue-eyed  myriads  from  the  Baltic  coast"     ' 

were  cheered  on  their  southward  march  by  the  hope  soon  to  "  scent  the 
fragrance  of  the  breathing  rose,"  the  master-gardener  of  St.  Anne's  Hill 
could  not  abstain  from  remarking  that  it  was  rather  unlucky  for  the 
poet  that  the  rose  blew  in  the  North  of  Europe. 


266  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

severance  in  that  case  was  the  less  meritorious  from  his  being 
under  an  engagement  to  his  nephew  that,  as  soon  as  he  had 
done  with  Southey,  he  would  embark  upon  the  shoreless  ocean 
of  Lope  de  Yega.1 

But  while  Fox  was  young,  not  even  the  generous  credulity 
of  youth  could  beguile  him  into  the  belief  that  he  lived  in  an 
age  of  poetry.  It  was  seldom  indeed  that  he  then  had  a 
chance  of  displaying  the  discriminating  ardor  with  which,  as 
a  boy  of  sixteen,  he  pounced  upon  Goldsmith's  "  Traveller." a 
The  three  great  authors  who  were  the  delight  of  what  may 
be  called  his  middle  period  had  as  yet  hardly  set  foot  on  the 
lowest  slopes  of  Parnassus.  Crabbe  was  still  rolling  band- 
ages, and  Burns  had  just  been  promoted  to  guide  the  plough. 
Cowper,  deep  in  the  Olney  hymns,  had  at  that  time  published 
nothing  to  which  Fox,  whose  taste  was  almost  too  secular  for 
"Paradise  Regained,"  would  ever  have  vouchsafed  a  second 
reading.  The  dearth  of  genius  in  British  literature  was  such 
as  to  inspire  Horace  Walpole  with  the  curiously  unfortunate 
prophecy  that  the  next  Augustan  age  would  dawn  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  that  the  country  which  in  the 
coming  generation  was  to  boast  a  galaxy  of  poets  which  the 
Pome  of  Maecenas  might  have  envied  would  have  to  seek  a 
Yirgil  in  New  York.  It  was  no  wonder  that,  in  order  to  find 
in  the  sphere  of  letters  something  which  answered  to  his  own 
dancing  and  buoyant  conceptions  of  the  universe  upon  which 

1  The  young  peer  had  translated  some  of  Lope  de  Vega,  and  gave  an 
account  of  his  author  which  staggered  an  enthusiast  of  the  drama  who 
was  not  easily  frightened.  "  What  can  you  mean,"  wrote  Fox,  "  by  eigh- 
teen hundred  plays  of  Lope  ?  Consider,  if  he  was  thirty  years  at  it,  that 
would  make  five  per  month.  I  shall  be  very  happy  if  you  can  spare  a 
morning  to  read  with  me  two  or  three,  for  I  do  not  think  I  shall  be  equal 
to  them  myself."  Two  years  afterwards  the  uncle  was  still  trying  to  put 
off  the  evil  day.  "  We  have  been  so  occupied  with  '  Madoc,' "  he  says, 
"  that  we  have  not  yet  looked  at  Lope ;  but  we  will  begin  immediately." 

3  "  If  there  were  any  way  of  sending  you  pamphlets,"  he  writes  to 
Russia,  to  George  Macartney,  in  1765,  "  I  could  send  you  a  new  poem, 
called  the  'Traveller,'  which  appears  to  me  to  have  a  good  deal  of 
merit.  I  do  not  know  anything  else  that  I  would  advise  you  to  read  if 
you  were  here." 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  267 

he  had  so  lately  entered,  Charles  Fox  turned  from  Home's 
"  Douglas  "  and  Mason's  "  Elf rida  "  and  Glover's  "  Athenaid  " 
to  the  "Winter's  Tale"  and  the  "Maid  of  Honor,"  to  the 
"  Rape  of  the  Lock  "  and  the  "  Flower  and  the  Leaf."  How 
freely  he  had  luxuriated  in  the  poetry  of  romance  during  those 
enchanted  years  when  alone  the  memory  retains  without  an 
effort  was  known  to  every  visitor  at  St.  Anne's  Hill  who  had 
tried  the  easy  experiment  of  tempting  him  from  his  desk  into 
his  garden  on  a  June  morning.  At  such  a  time  his  compan- 
ion might  draw  as  copiously  as  he  chose  (for  Fox  had  too  much 
of  the  orator's  half-conscious  but  ever-present  sympathy  with 
his  hearers  to  inflict  on  them  an  unacceptable  syllable)  from 
stores  of  vivid  criticism  and  apt  quotation,  which  sufficed  for 
many  and  many  a  stroll  among  his  rhododendrons  and  azaleas 
— past  the  urn  inscribed  with  the  prettiest  couplets  in  the  tale 
of  Dryden  that  he  loved  the  best;1  and  the  mass  of  laurus- 
tinus  embowering  the  retreat  which  the  most  intimate  of  his 


1  "  The  painted  birds,  companions  of  the  spring. 
Hopping  from  spray  to  spray,  were  heard  to  sing. 
Both  eyes  and  ears  received  a  like  delight, 
Enchanting  music  and  a  charming  sight. 
On  Philomel  I  fixed  my  whole  desire, 
And  listened  for  the  queen  of  all  the  quire. 
Fain  would  I  hear  her  heavenly  voice  to  sing, 
And  wanted  yet  an  omen  to  the  spring. 

So  sweet,  so  shrill,  so  variously  she  sung 
That  the  grove  echoed,  and  the  valleys  rung." 

The  lines  are  from  the  "Flower  and  the  Leaf;  or,  The  Lady  in  the 
Arbor  " — a  title  which  must  have  attracted  the  fancy  of  one  who  was  not 
averse  to  the  ladies,  and  who  had  probably  constructed  more  arbors  than 
any  son  of  Adam.  Lord  Holland's  mania  for  building  had  in  Charles 
Fox  most  fortunately  taken  the  shape  of  a  passion  for  rustic  architecture 
on  a  scale  that  suited  his  slender  means.  He  loved  temples  in  gardens 
(so  he  told  Eogers).  There  was  nothing  he  would  like  so  much  as  a 
Temple  of  the  Muses;  and  he  wished  that  anybody  (including,  and  prob- 
ably meaning,  Mrs.  Fox)  would  let  him  build  one.  Lord  Newburgh,  he 
said,  who  had  been  the  architect  of  King's  Gate,  was  a  man  of  great 
taste,  and  had  been  good  enough  to  build  him  a  temple. 


268  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

guests  respected  when  he  was  seated  there  with  Ariosto ;  and 
the  Temple  of  Friendship,  designed  by  the  same  hand  which 
had  planned  the  paternal  mansion  beneath  whose  roof  he  had 
begun  to  amass  his  treasures  of  learning  and  imagination. 

What  the  reminiscences  of  King's  Gate  were  to  Charles 
Fox  could  not  be  better  described  than  in  the  commencement 
of  the  fine  soliloquy  which  Cowper  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
the  harassed  minister  of  state,  who  is  perhaps  the  most  power- 
fully drawn  of  all  his  characters.1  "When  the  great  politician 
had  grown  old  enough  to  feel  the  weariness  of  politics,  and 
to  understand  the  craving  for  , 

"  that  repose 
The  servant  of  the  public  never  knows," 

it  must  have  been  with  sensations  curiously  compounded  be- 
tween honorable  pride  and  bitter  self-reproach  that  he  first 
perused  those  touching  and  forcible  lines.  Like  the  states- 
man in  the  poem,  he  had  cultivated  a  "  taste  for  ancient  song" 
in  his  father's  halls;  but  there  the  resemblance  stopped. 
Fox  never  scorned  the  studies  with  which  he  once  had  been 
familiar,  nor  lost,  by  his  own  neglect,  a  single  friend ;  and  he 
had  so  behaved  himself  in  the  fiery  ordeal  of  parliamentary 
life  that  he  might  have  returned  to  the  "  groves  "  of  King's 
Gate  without  the  obligation  of  addressing  to  them  the  humil- 
iating confession — 

"  Receive  me  now,  not  uncorrnpt  as  then, 
Nor  guiltless  of  corrupting  other  men, 
But  versed  in  arts  that,  while  they  seem  to  stay 
A  falling  empire,  hasten  its  decay." 

But  by  that  time  the  home  of  his  youth  was  his  no  longer. 

1  The  "Retirement"  was  written  during  the  summer  of  1781,  and  pub- 
lished in  the  following  winter.  The  story  of  the  minister  who  knew  the 
Court  and  the  senate  so  much  better  than  he  knew  himself  is  told  with 
briskness  and  conciseness  in  the  hundred-and-twenty  lines  which  come 
just  half-way  through  the  poem.  These  are  probably  the  verses  which 
Cowper,  as  he  informs  Mr.  Urwin  in  a  letter  of  that  date,  had  "finished 
and  polished,  and  touched  and  retouched  with  the  utmost  care,"  writ- 
ing them  at  the  rate  of  a  dozen,  instead,  as  had  been  usual  with  him,  of 
sixty,  lines  a  morning.     0,  si  sic  omnia  ! 


Chap.VIL]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  269 

"  Men  of  spirit,"  Ben  Jonson  tells  us,  "  seldom  keep  earth 
long;"  and  the  acres  of  King's  Gate,  as  well  as  the  groves 
that  stood  upon  them,  had  long  ere  that  gone  the  way  of  ev- 
erything which  Fox  possessed  except  his  public  honor  and 
his  political  conscience. 

The  earliest  of  those  follies  which  stripped  him  of  his  pat- 
rimony before  he  had  learned  the  importance  of  money,  and 
of  the  solid  worldly  position  which  money  gives,  were  com- 
mitted beneath  his  father's  eye.  For  some  years  together, 
about  this  period  of  the  family  history,  Lord  Holland  made  it 
a  rule  to  spend  his  winter  in  the  South  of  Europe ;  and  his 
annual  migrations,  with  sons,  sisters-in-law,  daughters-in-law, 
and  tutors  in  his  train,  were,  for  the  time  that  they  lasted, 
more  expensive  than  the  travels  of  any  one  under  an  emper- 
or.1 A  rumor  that  false  dice  wrere  being  dug  up  at  Hercula- 
neum  had  excited  a  faint  antiquarian  interest  in  the  London 
clubs,  and  Charles  had  been  commissioned  to  procure  a  pair 
for  exhibition  at  White's.  But  he  soon  had  reason  to  sus- 
pect that  the  manufacture  was  not  obsolete  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Vesuvius,  for,  when  he  sailed  from  Naples  on  his 
homeward  journey,  he  left  his  father  poorer,  it  is  said,  by  six- 
teen thousand  pounds.  As  far  as  the  public  has  been  per- 
mitted to  judge,  no  trace  of  vexation  can  be  detected  in  the 
older  man,  or  of  compunction  in  the  younger.  The  slightest 
change  for  the  better  or  the  worse  in  Lord  Holland's  health 
affected  Charles  far  more  keenly  than  did  his  own  infrequent 
gains  and  stupendous  losses ;  and  an  occasional  letter  from  a 
former  political  ally,  containing  the  particulars  of  the  son's 
last  eloquent  impertinence  in  the  House  of  Commons  never 
failed  to  evoke  from  the  father  expressions  of  unbounded, 
and  apparently  uncheckered,  satisfaction  in  a  lad  who  was 
costing  him,  and  for  three  years  continued  to  cost  him,  a  thou- 
sand guineas  a  week. 


1  Lord  Holland,  and  Mr.  Jesse,  the  editor  of  "  George  Selwyn  and  Lis 
Contemporaries,"  are  at  issue  about  the  dates  of  these  tours.  As  to  the 
nature  of  the  incidents,  there  is  no  discrepancy  whatever  between  the 
various  authorities. 


\y 


270  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VII. 

Lord  Holland's  renunciation  of  his  paternal  authority  was 
the  more  disastrous  because  the  only  other  influence  which 
could  have  reclaimed  or  restrained  the  prodigal  was  exerted, 
so  far  as  it  was  exerted  at  all,  on  the  wrong  side.  Charles, 
who  dreaded  nothing  so  much  as  giving  pain,  and  who  at  a 
later  date,  when  he  had  been  brought  to  see  that  the  effort 
was  demanded  of  him  by  honor,  proved  that  he  had  the 
strength  of  will  to  fling  off  in  a  moment  the  evil  habits  of  a 
lifetime,  would  never  have  braved  his  mother's  displeasure  or 
hardened  himself  against  her  sorrow.  But  Lady  Holland  had 
been  born  and  bred  in  the  society  which  took  its  tone  from 
Lord  Chesterfield,  who  had  laid  it  down  as  an  eleventh  com- 
mandment, to  be  kept  much  more  religiously  than  the  other 
ten,  that  a  man  of  fashion  should  hold  it  a  matter  of  duty  to 
be  on  the  best  of  terms  with  the  greatest  possible  number  of 
fine  French  ladies.  And  the  finest  French  ladies,  while  they 
encouraged  Hume  to  discuss  books,  and  bore  with  Priestley 
while  he  expounded  the  properties  of  nitrogen,  and  could 
even  summon  the  appropriate  emotions  when  Burke  reasoned 
with  them  on  the  terrors  of  religion,  had  no  notion  of  selling 
their  patronage  so  cheap  to  a  young  fellow  who  had  still  his 
name  to  make.  These  celebrated  dames,  whose  memory  owes 
so  much  to  the  species  of  intellectual  canonization  which  has 
befallen  every  Frenchman  and  Frenchwoman  who  wrote, 
read,  or  gossiped  during  the  generation  that  preceded  the 
Revolution — who  are  now  venerated  as  the  enterprising  and 
indefatigable  agents  of  a  system  of  free-trade  in  thought,  al- 
ways on  the  alert  to  secure  for  their  own  country  the  most  re- 
cent ideas  that  had  been  generated  across  the  Channel — while 
they  could  discourse  by  the  hour  about  Richardson  and  Locke, 
seldom  forgot  that  there  was  something  in  England  better 
worth  importing  than  sentimental  novels  and  trial  by  jury. 
The  political  sympathy  between  the  two  capitals  took  a  prac- 
tical and  profitable  form  when  it  brought  over  to  Paris  dur- 
ing the  Christmas  recess  two  or  three  experienced  members 
of  Parliament  who  could  be  relied  upon  for  a  confidential 
opinion  as  to  the  probability  of  Wilkes  being  unseated,  and 
three  or  four  of  their  youthful  colleagues  who  were  ready  to 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  271 

bet  a  thousand  francs  on  either  side  of  the  great  question  at 
the  bidding  of  a  pretty  or  witty  countess  who  piqued  herself 
upon  having  made  a  special  study  of  the  British  Constitution. 
Nor,  in  order  to  have  a  share  of  the  English  money,  was  it 
necessary  to  be  at  the  pains  of  mastering  the  ins  and  outs  of 
the  Middlesex  election.  "There  was  play  at  my  house  on 
Sunday  till  five  in  the  morning,"  wrote  Madame  du  Deffand 
in  December,  1769.  "The  Fox  lost  a  hundred  and  fifty 
louis.  I  fancy  this  young  man  will  not  get  off  for  his  stay 
here  under  two  or  three  thousand  louis." 

In  order  to  comprehend  the  history  of  Fox's  mind,  as  well 
as  the  part  which  he  took  in  the  most  stirring  events  of  his 
own,  and  perhaps  of  all  time,  it  is  necessary  to  keep  in  view 
the  circumstance  that  during  the  most  impressionable  years 
of  his  life  he  was  subjected  to  an  influence  which  was  then 
all-powerful,  but  which  is  now  a  tradition  of  the  past.  We 
who  are  used  to  see  our  countrymen  start  to  scour  three  con- 
tinents in  one  long  vacation,  and  come  back  more  English 
than  ever,  read  with  a  want  of  interest  closely  approaching 
incredulity  the  descriptions  in  the  old  novels  of  an  eldest  son 
returning  from  his  grand  tour  with  a  valet,  a  monkey,  and  a 
trunkful  of  laced  coats ;  shrugging  his  shoulders ;  swearing 
out  of  the  libretto  of  an  opera ;  disquieting  the  housekeeper 
by  asking  for  made  dishes,  and  the  butler  by  rising  from 
table  with  the  ladies.  These  fopperies  are  as  dead  to  us  as 
the  euphuism  of  Elizabeth;  but  a  hundred  and  ten  years  ago 
an  ambitious  young  squire,  who  did  his  best  to  disguise  his 
nationality,  was  going  the  right  way  to  pass  himself  off  upon 
his  rural  neighbors  for  a  man  of  fashion.  The  genuine  and 
acknowledged  leaders  of  society  were  then  as  much  Parisians 
as  Londoners.  They  talked  French  fluently.  They  wrote  it, 
if  not  well,  at  any  rate  well  enough  to  corrupt  their  English. 
They  got  from  France  their  dress,  their  carriages,  their  trink- 
ets, their  drink,  and  their  morals.  They  knew  the  scandalous 
chronicle  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain  as  accurately  as  that 
of  Bloomsbury,  and  were  better  versed  in  the  annals  of  the 
French  peerage  than  of  their  own.  During  the  same  fort- 
night in  which  George  Selwyn  was  convicted  of  blundering 


272  THE   EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

about  the  Howards  of  Xaworth  and  the  Howards  of  Corby, 
he  obtained  a  well-merited  apology  from  a  friend  who  had 
presumed  to  inform  him  that  the  Duke  of  Havre  was  nephew 
to  the  Prince  of  Croy.  "  I  beg  pardon,"  whites  Lord  Grant- 
ham, "  for  telling  you  wTho  any  Frenchman's  uncle  is,  as  you 
have  their  genealogy  by  heart."  And  well  he  might;  for 
Selwyn  himself,  and  three  out  of  four  among  his  correspond- 
ents, as  long  as  they  were  young  enough  to  face  the  horrors 
of  the  Channel  packet,  and  the  dirt  of  the  inns  of  Picardy, 
spent  in  France  every  odd  month  of  their  leisure  and  every 
spare  guinea  of  their  ready  money.1  In  1764,  on  the  king's 
birthday,  ninety-nine  Englishmen  of  position  sat  down  in 
Lord  Hertford's  hotel  in  Paris  to  one  of  those  state  banquets 
at  which  Wilkes  thanked  his  reputation  for  saving  him  from 
making  the  hundredth  guest.  Twto  days  after  the  last  race 
had  been  run  at  Ascot,  the  road  between  Calais  and  Abbeville 
was  alive  with  chaises  and  four,  streaming  southwards  as  fast 
as  postilions  could  be  bribed  to  travel ;  and  two  days  before 
the  Houses  met  for  the  winter  session,  a  string  of  British  leg- 
islators would  be  walking  on  board  at  Calais,  in  the  brand- 
new  satin  coats  and  embroidered  waistcoats  which  they  dared 
not  leave  among  their  luggage,  cursing  the  absurd  commer- 
cial laws  that  they  themselves  had  had  a  hand  in  framing, 
and  learning  more  political  economy  in  one  day  than  they 
heard  at  Westminster  in  a  twelvemonth.  "  The  strictness  of 
the  custom-house  still  continues,"  wrote  the  Eight  Honorable 
Thomas  Townshend  on  the  eleventh  of  November,  1764. 
"  Mr.  Rigby  brought  one  fine  suit  of  clothes,  which  he  saved 
by  wearing  it  when  he  landed.  Mr.  Elliot  saved  a  coat  and 
waistcoat;  but,  not  having  taken  the  same  precaution  with 

1  The  certainty  of  four  hours  between  Dover  and  Calais,  with  the  pos- 
sibility of  four-and-twenty ;  and  the  inn  at  Amiens,  where  he  sat,  "  fam- 
ished for  want  of  clean  victuals,"  as  far  away  as  possible  from  the  frowsy 
tapestry  behind  which  he  could  hear  "the  old  fleas  talking  of  Louis 
Quatorze,"  had  convinced  Walpole  that  he  was  past  the  age  for  France 
about  the  time  that  Fox  was  making  himself  at  home  there.  "  These 
jaunts  are  too  juvenile,"  he  writes,  in  1771.  "  I  am  ashamed  to  remember 
in  what  year  of  Methusaleh  I  was  here  first." 


Chap.  VIL]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  273 

his  breeches,  they  were  seized  and  burned."  "  I  could  not," 
said  the  Earl  of  Tyrone, "  help  blushing  at  the  ridiculous  fig- 
ure we  made  in  our  fine  clothes.  You  must  wear  your  gold, 
for  not  even  a  button  will  be  admitted."  The  ground  must 
have  been  well  prepared  for  Adam  Smith  when  a  peer  as  re- 
spectable as  Lord  Carlisle  was  driven  to  announce  that  he 
should  go  to  Paris  "  if  it  were  only  to  settle  a  smuggling  cor- 
respondence." 

The  quantity  of  time  that  our  ancesters  consumed  in  France 
may  be  estimated  by  the  amount  of  vicarious  shopping  which 
they  accomplished.  There  is  a  letter  in  which  the  Honorable 
Henry  St.  John,  better  known  as  "  the  Baptist "  among  the 
grown-up  schoolboys  of  St.  James's  Street,  calmly  directs 
George  Selwyn  to  buy  him  thirty  pounds'  worth  of  books, 
the  set  of  engravings  from  Vernet's  views  of  the  French  sea- 
ports, an  enamelled  watch,  and  a  half-dozen  tea-cups.  And 
when  St.  John,  in  his  turn,  went  to  Paris,  he  reports  himself  as 
having  purchased  a  snuff-box,  a  pair  of  buckles,  a  dressing- 
gown,  and  some  tables  for  Selwyn  ;  chosen  a  silk,  worked  with 
olives,  for  the  Earl  of  March ;  and  executed  a  very  intricate 
order  for  a  parcel  of  gauze  on  behalf  of  an  Italian  marchion- 
ess in  whom  that  worthy  couple,  partners  elsewhere  than  at 
Newmarket,  maintained  a  common  interest.  St.  John's  bur- 
den was  no  heavier  than  that  of  others ;  for  he  mentions  a 
nobleman  who  had  come  from  England  loaded  with  commis- 
sions, though  he  did  not  know  a  good  shop  from  a  bad  one. 
Walpole,  whose  thirty  years'  experience  of  the  Paris  streets 
qualified  him  to  make  money  go  as  far  as  anybody,  was  pro- 
vided by  the  ladies  of  his  acquaintance  with  occupation  for 
every  day  that  he  passed  in  that  city.  In  a  letter  written  in 
1771  he  gives  Lord  Ossory  the  choice  of  three  clocks;  tells 
Lady  Ossory,  prettily  enough,  that  he  has  bought  her  canvas 
and  silk  "  to  the  value  of  forty-six  livres  two  sous,  which,  when 
the  materials  shall  be  manufactured  by  your  ladyship,  will  in- 
crease a  millionfold ;"  and  laments  that  the  trade  in  knick- 
knacks  had  fallen  off  to  such  an  extent  that  he  knew  all  the 
snuff-boxes  and  toothpick -cases  in  the  windows  as  well  as 
every  succeeding  administration  knew  the  face  of  that  typical 

18 


274:  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

placeman,  Mr.  Welbore  Ellis.  Wilkes,  distrustful  of  English 
taste,  would  commit  to  no  judgment  less  august  than  that  of 
Baron  d'Holbach  the  charge  of  selecting  the  shade  of  scarlet 
cloth  which  set  off  his  remarkable  person  to  the  best  advan- 
tage. But  the  most  serious  responsibility  that  could  befall  a 
tourist  was  to  be  requested  by  a  friend  at  home  to  bring  him 
over  a  carriage.  The  London  coach-builders  had  then  a  great 
deal  to  learn ;  while  the  French  were  among  the  best  in  Eu- 
rope, and  were  still  improving.  "  In  their  dress  and  equi- 
pages," said  Walpole,  "  they  are  grown  very  simple.  We 
English  are  living  upon  their  old  gods  and  goddesses.  I  roll 
about  in  a  chariot  decorated  with  Cupids,  and  look  like  the 
grandfather  of  Adonis." 

Men  of  a  very  different  stamp  from  Lord  March  were  fre- 
quent visitors  to  Paris  on  worthier  errands  than  that  of  re- 
plenishing their  wardrobes  and  buying  presents  for  other  peo- 
ple's wives.  There  a  stranger  whose  name  possessed  any  lus- 
tre, or  whose  conversation  had  any  charm,  was  assured  of 
meeting  with  a  reception  which  gave  him  a  comfortable  sense 
of  being  famous  and  agreeable.  To  draw  out  the  indolent, 
to  set  the  diffident  at  ease,  to  tolerate  vanity  in  others'  while 
tacitly  and  unobtrusively  exacting  deference  for  themselves, 
were  then,  as  always,  the  arts  of  true-born  Frenchwomen ; 
and  those  arts  were  never  so  skilfully  and  willingly  practised 
as  when  they  were  employed  for  the  delectation  of  an  Eng- 
lishman. The  British  name  was  venerated  on  the  Continent. 
Those  were  the  days  when  it  was  a  distinction  to  have  breathed 
the  same  native  air  as  the  man  "  who  had  frightened  the  Great 
Mogul,  and  had  liked  to  have  tossed  the  Kings  of  France  and 
Spain  in  a  blanket  if  somebody  had  not  cut  a  hole  in  it  and 
let  them  slip  through,"  and  who  had  so  fascinated  the  lively 
imagination  of  his  chivalrous  adversaries  that  a  shy  member 
of  Parliament  whose  French  had  been  acquired  at  Eton,  or 
even  at  Edinburgh,  might  esteem  himself  lucky  if  he  could 
escape  from  a  Parisian  supper- party  without  having  been 
pressed  to  oblige  the  company  with  a  specimen  of  Mr.  Pitt's 
speaking.  Gibbon  has  gratefully  recorded  the  attentions 
which  were  lavished  upon  an  author  who  had  paid  his  hosts 


Chap.  VII.]  CHA11LES  JAMES  FOX.  275 

the  compliment  of  writing  his  first  book  in  the  language  of  a 
people  whom  his  own  countrymen  had  so  soundly  beaten. 
The  master  and  mistress  of  a  French  household  (so  he  tells 
us)  appeared  to  think  that  in  entertaining  him  they  were  con- 
ferring a  favor  upon  themselves.  "  Our  opinions,  our  fash- 
ions, even  our  games,  were  adopted  in  France,  and  every  Eng- 
lishman was  supposed  to  be  born  a  patriot  and  a  philosopher." 
And  when  the  Parisians  got  hold  of  a  real  philosopher,  who 
had  a  more  solid  claim  to  the  title  than  having  been  bred  on 
the  same  side  of  the  water  as  Iiobbes,  there  certainly  was  no 
stint  in  the  adulation  with  which  they  regaled  him.  "I  eat," 
said  David  Hume,  "nothing  but  ambrosia,  drink  nothing  but 
nectar,  breathe  nothing  but  incense,  and  tread  upon  nothing 
but  flowers.  Every  man,  and  still  more  every  lady,  would 
think  they  were  wanting  in  the  most  indispensable  duty  if 
they  did  not  make  a  long  and  elaborate  harangue  in  my 
praise."  The  very  babes  and  sucklings  joined  in  the  chorus. 
At  Yersailles  the  great  writer  was  presented  to  three  future 
kings  of  France,  of  whom  only  one  had  as  yet  arrived  at  the 
dignity  of  a  jacket  and  frills.  The  Due  de  Berri  gravely  pro- 
claimed himself  an  admirer  of  Hume,  and  begged  to  be  en- 
rolled among  the  number  of  his  friends.  The  Comte  de  Pro- 
vence assured  him  that  his  arrival  had  long  been  impatiently 
expected  by  Frenchmen,  even  by  those  for  whom,  like  him- 
self, the  perusal  of  his  fine  "  History  "  was  still  a  pleasure  to 
come ;  and  the  Comte  d'Artois,  who  was  six  years  old  and 
looked  four,  mumbled  some  fragments  of  a  panegyric  which 
had  been  half  forgotten  on  the  way  from  the  nursery. 

English  people  of  fashion,  who  were  accustomed  to  see  au- 
thors kept  in  their  proper  place,  could  not  understand  why 
such  a  fuss  should  be  made  about  a  man  with  nothing  but  his 
talents  to  recommend  him ;  but  the  contrast  between  the  es- 
timation in  which  literature  was  held  at  home  and  abroad 
only  enhanced  the  pleasure  of  so  kindly  a  welcome  to  the  ob- 
jects of  it.  An  author  who  in  London  had  been  made  to  feel 
at  every  turn  that  he  was  consorting  with  those  who  were 
wealthier  and  more  important  than  himself,  and  was  deafened 
by  a  ceaseless  clatter  of  selfish  personal  politics  which  appealed 


276  THE   EARLY    HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VII. 

to  the  higher  intelligence  almost  as  little  as  the  jargon  of  the 
Stock  Exchange,  at  Paris  was  as  good  as  the  very  best,  and  en- 
joyed the  novel  luxury  of  being  invited  to  dwell  upon  his 
favorite  topics,  and  give  utterance  to  his  most  cherished 
thoughts.1  Among  the  factious  barbarians  of  the  British 
metropolis  (such  was  the  constant  burden  of  Hume's  indig- 
nant rhetoric),  men  of  letters  had  no  weight  with  their  fel- 
lows and  no  confidence  in  themselves,  but  were  sunk  and  lost 
\J  "  in  the  general  torrent  of  the  world."  But  Paris  was  a  home 
of  culture,  a  nursing  mother  of  intellect,  a  centre  of  the  only 
good  society  that  merited  the  name.  At  Paris  an  article  on 
the  Patriarchs  by  Voltaire  made  as  much  noise  as  an  attack 
upon  the  ministry  by  Charles  Townshend  ever  made  in  Lon- 
don ;  and  the  mere  rumor  that  Rousseau  was  likely  to  walk  in 
-  the  Luxembourg  Gardens  would  draw  larger  crowds  than  in 
England  assembled  at  a  horse-race.  "  People  may  talk  of  an- 
cient Greece  as  they  please,  but  no  nation  was  ever  so  fond  of 
genius  as  this  ;"  and,  in  his  capacity  of  a  man  of  genius,  Hume 
fondly  and  frequently  recurred  to  the  idea  of  settling  at  Paris 
for  the  remainder  of  his  days ;  while  Gibbon  confessed  that 
nothing  but  the  necessity  of  earning  his  bread  and  obeying 
his  father  could  have  induced  him  to  tear  himself  from  a  res- 
idence among  a  people  "  who  have  established  a  freedom  and 
ease  in  society  unknown  to  antiquity  and  still  unpractised  by 
other  nations."  a 

1  Arthur  Young,  who,  as  a  man  of  science  with  a  specialty,  was  made 
much  of  by  the  French  nobility,  gives  the  same  explanation  as  Hume  of 
the  contrast  between  the  two  countries.  "  I  should  pity,"  he  writes,  "  the 
man  who  expected  to  be  well  received  in  a  brilliant  circle  in  London  be- 
cause he  happened  to  be  a  member  of  the  Royal  Society.  But  a  member 
of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  at  Paris  is  sure  of  a  good  reception  every- 
where. Politics  are  too  much  attended  to  in  England  to  allow  a  due  re- 
gard to  anything  else." 

2  Those  who  have  read  enough  literary  autobiography  to  be  aware  how 
easy  it  is  for  authors  to  overrate  their  own  social  successes  might  suspect 
that  Hume  was  less  ardently  worshipped  than  he  imagined ;  but  all  that 
he  says  about  himself  is  confirmed  by  the  envious  sneers  of  his  contem- 
poraries, who  were  never  tired  of  describing  him  in  prose  and  verse  as 

"  Drunk  with  Gallic  wine  and  Gallic  praise," 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  277 

While  Louis  the  Sixteenth  was  a  boy  in  the  schoolroom, 
and  De  Lauzun  a  dashing  bridegroom  who  would  have  laughed 
at  the  notion  that  he  or  his  duchess  would  ever  know  either 
sorrow  or  terror,  this  international  commerce  in  court-scandal 
and  clocked  stockings  had  nothing  about  it  which  seemed  like- 
ly to  engage  the  attention  of  posterity.  But  a  time  came 
when  the  close  alliance  between  the  higher  orders  in  the  two 
countries  was  to  produce  results  of  world-wide  magnitude. 
The  sympathy  excited  among  the  families  which  governed 
England  by  the  misfortunes  of  the  families  which  were  con- 
spicuous in  France  before  the  Revolution  mowed  them  down 
like  a  whirlwind  in  a  grove  of  beeches  was  the  most  passion- 
ate emotion  that  the  sufferings  of  men  alien  in  race  and  blood 
have  ever  inspired  in  any  section  of  our  community.  That 
sympathy  was  stronger,  and  more  practical  in  its  effects,  than 
the  compassion  which  our  nation  felt  for  the  Protestants  of 
Holland  in  the  days  of  the  Spanish  fury,  or  for  the  Huguenots 
in  the  days  of  the  dragonnades ;  for  the  patriots  of  the  Tyrol, 
of  Hungary,  of  Naples ;  for  the  slaves  of  South  Carolina ;  for 
the  victims  of  Turkish  cruelty  in  Greece,  and  of  Russian 
cruelty  in  Poland.  The  silken  bonds  of  common  pleasures 
and  tastes,  which  seem  trifling  enough  at  the  moment,  proved 


although,  in  point  of  fact,  the  second  charge  was  as  unfounded  as  the 
first.  Horace  Walpole,  who,  both  as  an  eclipsed  man  of  letters  and  a 
somewhat  antiquated  person  of  fashion,  could  not  keep  his  patience 
while  Hume  was  talking  Deism  in  a  broad  Scotch  accent  to  a  circle  of 
duchesses  with  whose  mothers  he  had  himself  exchanged  bouts  rimes  in 
days  when  Fleury  was  minister,  tried  in  vain  to  disguise  his  vexation 
under  the  cloak  of  a  new-found  and  speedily  dropped  zeal  on  behalf  of 
outraged  piety.  His  letters  from  France  are  full  of  strictures  on  the  au- 
dacity of  the  fair  Parisians,  who  discussed  Genesis  while  the  footmen 
were  in  the  room ;  on  the  dreariness  of  their  conversation,  which  "  want- 
ed nothing  but  George  Grenville  to  be  the  most  tiresome  upon  earth ; " 
and  on  their  bad  taste  in  making  a  prophet  of  Rousseau,  and  a  lion  of 
Hume,  "who  is  the  only  thing  that  they  believe  in  implicitly;  which 
they  must  do,  for  I  defy  them  to  understand  any  language  that  he 
speaks."  At  length  Hume  went  over  to  England,  and,  for  his  sorrow, 
carried  Rousseau  with  him ;  and  then  Walpole  began  once  more  to  en- 
joy himself  as  of  old. 


278  THE  EAELY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

stronger  under  the  test  than  the  ties  of  religious  faith  or  of 
political  creed ;  and  while  the  democrats  of  Paris  were  ap- 
pealing almost  in  vain  to  the  brotherhood  which,  according 
to  the  Jacobin  programme,  was  to  unite  against  their  tyrants 
all  the  peoples  of  Europe,  there  was  nothing  fictitious  or  shal- 
low in  the  sentiment  of  class  fraternity  which  instantly  and 
spontaneously  enlisted  the  gentry  of  Great  Britain  in  deter- 
mined and  implacable  hostility  to  the  French  Republic.  When 
De  Montmorencies  and  De  Liancourts  came  riving  over  on 
much  more  pressing  business  than  that  of  engaging  jockeys 
or  inspecting  fancy  cattle,  their  English  comrades  of  earlier 
and  merrier  days  proved  themselves  no  fair-weather  friends. 
Just  as,  after  the  fall  of  the  Second  Empire,  Louis  Napoleon 
could  count  among  his  former  subjects  no  partisans  more  sin- 
cere and  loyal  in  their  sorrow  than  those  fashionable  citizens 
of  New  York  who  had  resorted  to  his  court  in  search  of  the 
delights  which  they  looked  for  in  vain  at  home,  so,  ninety 
years  before,  the  old  society  of  France  found  its  chief  mourn- 
ers in  the  club-rooms  and  drawing-rooms  of  London.  "When 
the  city  which  had  been  the  paradise  of  wits  and  dandies  was 
delivered  over  to  a  mob  of  porters  and  fishwives  officered  by 
provincial  attorneys — when  to  dress  badly,  and  feed  coarse- 
ly, and  talk  an  inflated  jargon  borrowed  from  third-rate  trans- 
lations of  the  classics  had  come  to  be  the  distinguishing 
mark  of  a  Parisian — George  Selwyn  and  the  Duke  of  Queens- 
berry  regarded  the  unattractive  spectacle  much  as  a  good  Mus- 
sulman would  regard  the  desecration  of  Mecca.  And  better 
men  than  Queensberry  and  Selwyn  were  aghast  at  the  deeds 
of  violence  and  barbarity  that  were  perpetrated  daily  on  the 
very  altar  of  the  shrine  of  elegance  and  refinement.  France, 
after  the  emigration,  was  for  Walpole  a  den  of  wild  beasts,  a 
desert  full  of  hyenas.  Frenchmen  were  wretches  who  "  had 
destroyed  the  power  of  words"  to  paint  their  depravity;  can- 
nibals, scalp-hunters,  wTolves,  tigers,  a  mad  herd  of  swine  that 
had  not  the  decency  to  make  an  end  of  themselves  in  the  sea ; 
monsters,  of  whom  until  the  earth  was  purged,  peace  and  mo- 
rality would  never  revisit  it.  Even  Gibbon's  blood  was  warmed 
by  the  prospect  of  exterminating  the  "  miscreants"  whose  Ian- 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  279 

gnage  lie  had  written  more  easily  than  English,  and  whose 
country  he  once  would  gladly  have  adopted  as  his  home.  Our 
compatriots,  with  one  bright  exception,  in  proportion  as  they 
had  formerly  liked  France,  thenceforward  hated  the  French 
people  ;  but  the  clear  intellect  and  generous  heart  of  Fox  pre- 
served him  from  exhibiting  in  such  an  irrational  and  unwor- 
thy form  his  gratitude  for  the  pleasant  months  which  he  had 
passed  on  French  soil.  His  personal  connections  lay  exclu- 
sively with  the  class  which  was  paying  so  cruelly,  and  in  many 
cases  so  undeservedly,  for  centuries  of  undisputed  privilege 
and  secure  enjoyment ;  but  he  had  sympathy  to  spare  for  the 
twenty  millions  of  peasants  and  artisans  who  had  long  toiled 
and  fasted,  and  who,  intoxicated  for  the  moment  by  unaccus- 
tomed and  untempered  draughts  of  liberty,  wTere  still,  for  bet- 
ter or  for  worse,  the  French  nation.  Though  every  hearth  in 
Paris  that  had  entertained  him  was  cold,  and  though  all  his 
hosts  were  in  exile  or  in  the  grave,  France  was  there  with  her 
mighty  past  and  her  splendid  future — with  her  rare  genius, 
however  obscured,  and  her  high  instincts,  however  perverted 
— and  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  acquiesce  in  her  exclusion 
from  the  pale  of  humanity.  Burke  never  uttered  a  truer  met- 
aphor than  when  he  likened  Fox's  love  for  France  to  the  at- 
tachment of  a  cat  which  continues  faithful  to  the  house  after 
the  family  has  left  it. 

Fox  might  well  retain  through  life  a  sense  of  having  been 
domesticated  in  a  country  where  he  had  made  himself  so  thor- 
oughly at  home.  He  was  a  magnificent  specimen  of  those 
young  travelling  Englishmen  who  in  another  generation  used 
to  excite  the  amused  admiration  of  Goethe  by  their  open  and 
unembarrassed  bearing  in  a  society  that  was  foreign  to  them ; 
by  the  confidence  with  which  they  cross-examined  the  father 
of  German  literature  in  as  much  of  his  own  language  as  they 
had  picked  up  between  Cologne  and  Weimar;  by  their  in- 
stinctive and  unaffected  conviction  that  "they  were  lords  \// 
everywhere,  and  that  the  whole  world  belonged  to  them."1 

1  "  Whether  it  is,"  said  Goethe,  "  the  race,  the  soil,  the  free  political 
constitution,  or  the  healthy  tone  of  education,  the  English  show  to  great 


2S0  THE   EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

Those  English  manners  in  which  Goethe  was  philosopher 
enough  to  recognize  the  qualities  that  had  made  England  free  at 
home  and  dominant  abroad,  and  which  he  was  man  enough  to 
relish  and  love,  were  not  to  the  taste  of  the  celebrated  French- 
woman who,  having  given  law  to  one  generation  by  her  smiles 
and  to  another  by  her  wit,  was  beginning  to  feel  doubtful  of  her 
hold  on  the  social  allegiance  of  a  new  race  of  people  whose  ways 
of  thought  were  not  hers,  and  whose  faces  she  had  never  seen. 
Madame  du  Deffand's  notions  of  what  a  great  English  states- 
man's son  should  be  were  derived  from  Horace  Walpole,  who, 
turned  of  fifty  and  chastened  by  gout,  was  never  so  happy  as 
when  seated  at  her  tea-table,  gathering  anecdotes  of  the  Re- 
gency, submitting  to  be  rallied  on  his  pronunciation  of  the 
French  diphthongs,  and  encouraging  her  to  believe  that,  to  a 
( right-minded  devotee  of  the  sex,  high  spirits  at  seventy-three 
were  as  attractive  as  the  sprightliness  of  one-and-twenty.  But 
she  was  not  fond  of  Charles  Fox,  nor  easy  in  his  company. 
He  did  not  fail  in  the  outward  respect  which,  according  to 
the  social  code  then  in  force,  was  due  to  a  lady  who  had  sin- 
ned in  such  very  high  quarters,  and  so  very  many  years  be- 
fore. He  diligently  attended  her  parties,  and  guessed  her 
riddles,  and  consulted  her,  as  the  first  living  authority,  on  the 
vexed  point  whether  the  expression  une  jolie  figure  related 
only  to  the  features,  or  "  to  every  part  of  the  body  which  is 
susceptible  of  beauty."  But  Madame  du  Deffand  was  not  too 
blind  to  perceive  that  he  would  rather  have  been  studying 
that  question  with  his  cousin  the  Duke  of  Berwick,  after  the 
ancestral  fashion  of  their  family,  at  the  feet  of  three  fair 
professors  whose  united  ages  fell  short   of  hers;1  however 

advantage.  The  secret  does  not  lie  in  rank  and  riches.  It  lies  in  the 
courage  which  they  have  to  be  that  for  which  nature  has  made  them. 
There  is  nothing  vitiated,  half-way,  or  crooked  about  them;  but,  such  as 
they  are,  they  are  complete  men.  That  they  are  also  sometimes  complete 
fools,  I  allow  with  all  my  heart;  but  that  is  still  something,  and  has  some 
weight  in  the  scale  of  nature." 

1  "  I  supped  last  night,"  writes  Fox,  in  November,  1770,  "  with  Lauzun, 
FitzJames,  and  some  others,  at  what  they  call  a  Club  a  VAnglaise.  It 
was  in  a  petite  maison  of  Lauzun's.     There  was  Madame  Briseau  and  two 


Chap.VIL]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  281 

courageously  she  might  toil  to  prove  herself  as  young  as  her 
neighbors  by  running  to  all  the  puppet-shows  and  theatres, 
and  making  parties  to  drive  in  the  Boulevard  by  moonlight, 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  too  early  to  go  to  bed  at  one  in  the 
morning.  The  character  of  the  young  man  wTas  to  her  a  moral 
and  intellectual  problem  which  afforded  endless  matter  for 
discourse.  He  never  spent  an  evening  in  her  drawing-room 
without  leaving  her  piqued,  puzzled,  and  occasionally  not  a 
little  frightened.  Her  letters  to  Walpole  suggest  the  idea  of 
a  cat  and  a  lap-dog  talking  over  a  lion's  cub  which  had  some- 
how found  its  way  on  to  the  hearth-rug.  "I  told  you,"  she 
writes,  "  not  long  ago,  that  I  was  giving  my  last  supper  of 
twelve,  and  that  I  never  again  would  have  so  many.  Well, 
as  a  natural  consequence,  we  yesterday  were  sixteen,  which 
spoiled  my  evening.  They  set  up  a  vingt-et-un ;  but  I  did 
not  play.  Your  young  people  stayed  to  the  very  end ;  Fox, 
Spenser,  and  Fitzpatrick.  I  think  the  last  is  my  favorite,  for 
his  soft,  tractable  manners ;  but  I  know  him  too  little  to  judge. 
As  for  the  Fox,  he  is  hard,  bold,  and  ready,  with  all  the  con- 
fidence of  his  merit.  He  will  not  spare  the  time  to  look  well 
about  him,  but  sees  everything  at  a  glance,  and  takes  a  bird's- 
eye  view  of  the  situation.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  one 
person  is  much  the  same  to  him  as  another.  It  is  not  from 
self-sufficiency,  for  he  strikes  me  as  neither  vain  nor  supercil- 
ious ;  but  he  does  not  put  his  mind  to  yours,  and  I  am  satis- 
fied that  he  will  never  form  any  connections  except  such  as 
arise  from  play,  and  perhaps  from  politics ;  but  of  politics  I 
know  nothing."  Fox,  she  says  elsewhere,  brought  Fitzpatrick 
to  see  her;  but  the  visit  was  a  failure.  She  was  tired;  she 
did  not  know  how  to  talk  to  young  people ;  and,  if  she  had 
been  willing  to  confess  it,  such  young  people  as  Fox,  or  even 
as  Fitzpatrick,  had  not  often  come  within  the  sphere  of  her 
observation. 

other  women.  The  supper  was  execrably  bad.  However,  the  champagne 
and  tokay  were  excellent;  notwithstanding  which  the  fools  made  du 
ponche  with  bad  rum.  This  club  is  to  meet  every  Saturday,  either  here 
or  at  Versailles.  I  am  glad  to  see  that  we  cannot  be  foolisher  in  point 
of  imitation  than  they  are." 


282  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

As  time  went  on,  and  the  fame  of  the  young  statesman  per- 
vaded the  Continent,  Madame  du  Deffand  made  more  and 
more  desperate  efforts  to  comprehend  and  to  class  him ;  but 
she  arrived  at  no  other  result  than  that  of  producing  a  series 
of  sketchy  but  suggestive  studies  of  Charles  Fox  as  he  appear- 
ed at  successive  stages  of  his  early  manhood  to  an  observer 
with  whom  he  had  as  little  in  common  as  one  very  clever  per- 
son could  well  have  with  another.  At  last,  after  watching 
him  for  seven  years,  she  gave  it  up  as  hopeless,  and  allowed 
that  he  was  too  English  for  her  to  understand — an  acknowl- 
edgment which  it  certainly  was  high  time  to  make  when  she 
had  committed  herself  to  the  psychological  position  that,  while 
overflowing  with  wit,  kindness,  and  sincerity,  he  was  at  the 
same  time  nothing  short  of  detestable.  She  never  could  for- 
give him  his  carelessness  as  to  whether  the  companions  of  his 
leisure  hours  thought  him  earnest  or  frivolous,  brilliant  or 
commonplace.  A  great  genius  is  apt  to  fare  ill  at  the  hands 
of  the  memoir-writers,  who  deal  with  the  surface  of  society, 
and  who  (unless,  like  Sully  and  De  Segur,  they  have  them- 
selves been  men  of  action)  are  seldom  quick  in  recognizing 
the  forces  that  move  the  world.  Kapoleon  was  detected  as  a 
second-rate  man  by  the  diplomatist  who  overheard  him  in- 
form twenty  ladies  in  succession  that  it  was  a  warm  day; 
and  of  about  equal  value  was  Madame  du  Deffand's  verdict 
that  Fox  had  a  good  heart,  but  no  principles — delivered  at  a 
time  when  he  was  already  the  life  and  soul  of  the  stoutest  and 
most  disinterested  struggle  for  principle  that  ever  had  been 
fought  out  by  voice  and  pen1 — and  her  announcement  that  he 
was  perpetually  drunk  with  high  spirits,  and  that  his  head  was 
turned  without  hope  of  recovery,  during  a  period  when  he 
was  daily  convincing  so  acute  and  impartial  a  judge  as  Gibbon 

1  "Above  all,  my  dear  lord,  I  hope  that  it  will  be  a  point  of  honor 
among  us  all  to  support  the  American  pretensions  in  adversity  as  much 
as  we  did  in  their  prosperity,  and  that  we  shall  never  desert  those  who 
have  acted  unsuccessfully  upon  Whig  principles,  while  we  continue  to 
profess  our  admiration  of  those  who  succeeded  in  the  same  principles  in 
the  year  1688."  So  wrote  Fox  to  Rockingham  when  the  hopes  of  the 
colonists  had  been,  to  all  appearance,  finally  shattered  on  Long  Island. 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  283 

that  "in  the  conduct  of  a  party  he  approved  himself  equal 
to  the  conduct  of  an  empire." 

It  is  not  only  in  Madame  du  Deffand's  letters  that  the 
names  of  Fox  and  Fitzpatrick  occur  in  close  and  constant 
juxtaposition.  With  the  exception  of  a  short  interval,  when 
the  less  distinguished  of  the  two  was  fighting  in  America, 
and  fighting  well,  for  a  cause  which  they  both  equally  disap- 
proved, one  of  the  young  men  is  rarely  mentioned  anywhere 
without  the  next  sentence  bringing  an  allusion  to  the  other. 
Fitzpatrick's  father  was  the  Lord  Ossory  whose  daughter  was 
married  to  Lord  Holland's  eldest  son,  a  relationship  quite  near 
enough  to  turn  into  sworn  brothers  a  pair  who  seemed  made 
for  each  other  both  by  nature  and  circumstances.  Equals  in 
rank,  and  virtually  equals  in  age  —  for  the  two  additional 
years  during  which  Fitzpatrick  had  been  enjoying  himself 
on  the  earth  did  no  more  than  counterbalance  the  amazing 
precocity  of  his  companion — the  boys  at  once  struck  up  an 
alliance,  offensive  and  defensive,  which  only  death  dissolved. 
Wherever  Fox  was  in  difficulty  or  danger,  whether  in  the 
heat  of  debate  at  midnight,  or  at  daybreak  on  the  chill  grass 
of  Hyde  Park,  Fitzpatrick  was  at  his  side  to  see  him  through 
the  business;  and,  when  amusement  was  on  foot,  the  friends 
were  inseparable.  They  had  everything  in  common — pur- 
suits, accomplishments,  house-room,  horse-flesh,  their  money,  as 
long  as  it  lasted,  and  afterwards  what  they  were  pleased  to 
call  their  credit.  They  were  both  delightful  talkers,  whose 
society  people  twice  their  age  gladly  purchased  by  the  sacri- 
fice of  a  morning's  work,  or  the  indefinite  prolongation  of  an 
after-dinner  sitting.  Fitzpatrick  rapidly  obtained,  and  long 
kept,  the  reputation  of  being  the  most  agreeable  member  of  a 
society  so  agreeable  that  posterity  is  tempted  to  forget  how 
little  else  it  had  to  recommend  it.  Fox,  on  the  other  hand, 
as  his  energies  became  absorbed,  and  his  appetite  for  display 
surfeited  by  his  labors  and  triumphs  as  an  orator,  soon  lost 
the  habit  of  exerting  himself  in  conversation.  He  became 
content  to  alternate  between  silent  attention  in  the  presence 
of  those  whom  he  thought  better  worth  hearing  than  himself, 
and  a  lazy  outpouring  of  whatever  engaged  his  mind  at  the 


284  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

moment,  which  his  hearers  drank  in  without  consciously  admir- 
ing, and  most  unfortunately  (for  the  scanty  samples  that  re- 
main are  redolent  of  fancy,  sense,  and  humor)  without  under- 
taking to  record.  Both  the  friends  wrote  verses,  in  the  old 
stilted  manner,  with  a  superabundance  of  capital  letters,  and 
without  even  an  elementary  trace  of  a  conception  that  what  was 
sung  ought  to  bear  some  relation  to  what  was  felt.  Their  most 
ambitious  flight  was  on  the  occasion  when,  in  May,  1775,  they 
tuned  their  pipes  to  celebrate  the  charms  of  Mrs.  Crewe,  while 
no  less  competent  an  umpire  than  Mason  consented  to  play 
Palsemon  to  the  rival  swains.  The  palm  was  adjudged  to 
Fox.  " The  young  cub's"  (so  Mason  wrrote)  "is  certainly  the 
best.  It  has  something  of  character  and  originality  about  it. 
The  other  is  the  most  old-fashioned  thing  to  be  written  by  a 
young  man  of  fashion  that  I  ever  read.  He  might  have  writ 
it  in  a  full-bottomed  wig.  If  my  friend  had  not  dated  it, 
I  should  have  thought  it  printed  somewhere  about  the  last 
four  years  of  Queen  Anne."  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  what 
could  be  less  original,  and  more  archaic,  than  the  closing  lines 
of  the  successful  poem  : 

"  If  then  for  this  once  in  my  Life  I  am  free, 
And  escape  from  a  Snare  might  catch  wiser  than  me, 
'Tis  that  Beauty  alone  but  imperfectly  charms, 
For  though  Brightness  may  dazzle,  'tis  kindness  that  warms. 
As  on  Suns  in  the  Winter  with  Pleasure  we  gaze, 
But  feel  not  their  Force,  though  their  Splendor  we  praise, 
So  Beauty  our  just  Admiration  may  claim ; 
But  Love,  and  Love  only,  our  Hearts  can  inflame." 1 

1  It  is  pretty  to  contrast  with  the  labored  frigidity  of  this  youthful  per- 
formance the  verses  which  Fox  addressed  to  his  wife  in  1797,  composed 
as  he  was  being  brought  home  badly  wounded  from  the  shooting-field : 

"Sense  of  pain  and  danger  flies 
From  the  looks  of  those  dear  eyes ; 
Looks  of  kindness,  looks  of  love, 
That  lift  my  mortal  thoughts  above, 
While  I  view  that  heavenly  face, 
While  I  feel  that  dear  embrace, 
While  I  hear  that  soothing  voice, 
Though  maimed  or  crippled,  life's  my  choice, 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  285 

But  Fitzpatrick  as  well  as  Fox  bad  better  stuff  in  bim  than 
to  waste  bis  ingenuity  in  trying  to  write  like  Parnell  when 
Parnell  was  trying  to  write  like  Waller.  Ten  years  later,  in 
the  maturity  of  his  powers,  a  happy  chance  revealed  to  him 
the  quarter  where  bis  real  strength  lay ;  and  as  the  author  of 
half  what  is  good,  and  almost  all  of  what  is  best,  in  the 
"  Rolliad,"  he  has  permanently  connected  his  reputation  with 
a  literary  performance  which  Whigs  may  be  excused  for  re- 
garding as  the  best  political  satire  since  Dry  den. 

The  identity  in  tastes  between  the  young  kinsmen  did  not 
stop  with  poetry.  There  was  hardly  one  of  the  Muses,  and, 
sooth  to  say,  not  many  earthly  goddesses,  whom,  at  one  time 
or  another,  they  had  not  worshipped  together.  They  were 
both  devoted  to  the  stage ;  and  their  earlier  correspondence, 
so  far  as  it  has  any  heart  in  it,  refers  to  little  else.  There  is 
something  comical  and  rather  taking  in  the  eagerness  with 
which  Fox  canvassed  the  histrionic  capabilities  of  all  his 
friends  and  relations.  Every  chance  acquaintance  whom  he 
picked  up  on  the  Continent  was  forthwith  enlisted  in  his 
troop,  and  thrust  straight  into  the  leading  business,  even 
though  the  unlucky  recruit  might  never  have  learned  ten 
lines  of  Virgil  correctly  all  the  while  he  was  at  Eton.  "Your 
sister,"  he  writes  to  Fitzpatrick  from  Florence,  "is  a  very 
good  actress.  Lady  Sarah's  fame  is  well  known.  She  acted 
extremely  well  in  the  comedy.  In  the  tragedy  he  did  not 
know  his  part.     Carlisle  is  not  an  excellent  actor,  but  will 

Without  these,  all  the  fates  can  give 
Has  nought  to  make  me  wish  to  live. 
No,  could  they  foil  the  power  of  time, 
And  restore  youth's  boasted  prime ; 
Add,  to  boot,  fame,  power,  and  wealth, 
Undisturbed  and  certain  health, 
Without  thee  'twould  nought  avail ; 
The  source  of  every  joy  would  fail: 
But  loved  by  thee,  by  thee  caressed, 
In  pain  and  sickness  I  am  blest." 

Such  lines  at  fifty  are  worth  more  to  the  subject  of  them  than  a  ream  of 
sonnets  at  six-and-twenty. 


286  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

make  a  very  useful  one.  Peter  Brodie  is  the  best  manager 
prompter  in  the  world.  We  want  another  actor  or  two,  but 
much  more  another  actress.  There  are  few  comedies  that  do 
not  require  above  two  women."  When,  under  the  combined 
excitement  afforded  by  the  prospect  of  an  heir  and  of  a  seat 
in  Parliament,  poor  Stephen  Fox  allowed  his  dramatic  ardor 
to  flag,  the  stern  indignation  of  his  younger  brother  was  pos- 
itively impressive.  "  He  does  not,"  exclaimed  Charles,  "  so 
much  as  mention  acting  in  any  of  his  letters;  but  I  hope  his 
enthusiasm  (for  such  it  was  last  year)  will  return.  Indeed,  it 
will  be  very  absurd  if  he  has  built  a  theatre  for  nothing.  You 
may  tell  my  brother  I  can  get  two  actors  for  him ;  one  good- 
ish  and  one  baddish.  I  have  not  engaged  them,  but  I  know  I 
can  have  them."  "The  two  actors  I  mentioned"  (so  he  tells 
Fitzpatrick  in  his  next)  "were  Price  and  Fitzwilliam.  The 
former  has  appeared  with  great  success  in  the  part  of  Glouces- 
ter in  'Jane  Shore,'  though  in  Alonzo  in  'The  Revenge'  he 
lost  much  of  the  credit  he  had  gained.  You  will  oblige  me 
very  much  if  you  will  put  him  up  at  Al mack's  till  he  is  cho- 
sen, without  minding  how  many  blackballs  he  has.  Pray  do 
not  blackball  him  yourself.  As  to  Fitzwilliam,  he  says  he 
should  like  to  act,  but  I  do  not  believe  he  will,  and  I  think  he 
would  make  a  bad  actor." 

Fox  was  reckoned  Fitzpatrick's  superior  in  tragedy,  but 
much  his  inferior  in  genteel  comedy.  They  made  a  point  of 
frequently  exchanging  their  parts,  and  took  infinite  pains  to 
improve,  and,  as  they  at  first  thought,  to  perfect,  themselves 
where  they  were  respectively  deficient.  But  their  misplaced 
ambition  did  not  outlast  the  time  when  the  younger  of  them 
was  four-and-twenty,  and  had  been  a  man  about  town  for  the 
eight  years  which  were  the  golden  era  of  our  green-room,  with 
the  opportunity  of  sitting  four  times  a  week  in  a  theatre  man- 
aged as  no  British  theatre  has  been  managed  before  or  since. 
He  was  already  making  his  way  into  that  choice  social  circle 
of  which  Garrick  was  an  ornament,  and  might  gather  from 
the  comments  or  (more  convincingly  still)  from  the  expressive 
silence  of  the  master  what  was  the  worth  of  amateur  acting 
according  to  the  greatest  actor  who  ever  spoke  the  language 


Chap.  VII.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  287 

of  the  greatest  of  dramatists.1  From  1773  onwards,  Fox  con- 
cerned himself  no  more  with  a  pastime  which  was  at  best  but 
an  imitation  of  an  imitation,  and  gave  his  undistracted  powers 
to  an  art  in  which  his  success  had  been  as  signal  and  as  in- 
stantaneous as  the  success  of  Garrick  on  the  stage.  For  the 
pursuit  of  that  art  his  long  apprenticeship  to  the  buskin  was 
among  the  most  important  of  his  qualifications.  It  was  no 
slight  advantage  to  a  great  extempore  speaker  to  have  at  hand 
an  extensive  and  diversified  stock  of  quotations  from  that 
branch  of  literature  which  is  nearest  akin  to  oratory ;  and  for 
such  a  speaker  it  is  essential  that  the  voice,  no  less  than  the 
memory  and  the  reasoning  faculty,  should  be  under  absolute 
control.  That  laborious  discipline  in  the  theory  and  practice 
of  elocution  through  which  Fox  was  carried  by  his  disinter- 
ested passion  for  the  drama,  but  which  no  one  who  ever  lived 
was  less  likely  to  have  deliberately  undertaken  with  an  eye  to 
parliamentary  advancement,  had  gained  him  a  command  of 
accent  and  gesture  which,  as  is  always  the  case  with  the  high- 
est art,  gave  his  marvellous  rhetoric  the  strength  and  the  sim- 
plicity of  nature.     The  pains  which  he  had  bestowed  upon 

1  Garrick,  as  oral  tradition  relates,  was  invited  to  witness  some  private 
theatricals  at  a  great  country-house.  After  the  performance  he  was  anx- 
iously questioned  as  to  the  merits  of  the  actors,  and,  seeing  that  he  must 
say  something,  he  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  gentleman  who  played 
the  king  seemed  quite  at  home  on  the  stage.  It  turned  out  that  Ins 
praise  had  been  bestowed  upon  a  scene-shifter  from  his  own  theatre,  who 
had  been  brought  down  from  London  to  superintend  the  mechanical  ar- 
rangements, and  had  taken  the  part  on  an  emergency. 

Fox  was  elected  at  Brooks's  about  the  same  time  that  Garrick  returned 
from  the  protracted  Continental  tour  on  which  he  had  resolved  when, 
after  having  kept  the  town  at  his  feet  for  twenty  years,  he  noticed  that 
the  public  for  a  while  had  grown  weary  of  praising  him.  His  Italian 
journey,  undertaken  from  the  same  motives  as  Napoleon's  expedition  to 
Egypt,  produced  the  same  decisive  effect  upon  his  career  and  his  reputa- 
tion. London,  as  tired  of  hearing  Powell  rant  as  France  of  seeing  Barras 
misgovern,  welcomed  back  her  favorite  with  a  succession  of  nightly  ova- 
tions, and  took  care  that  he  should  never  again  suspect  her  fidelity.  The 
critics  remarked  that  Garrick,  artist  enough  to  be  a  learner  at  eight-and- 
forty,  had  cured  himself,  by  a  course  of  study  in  the  Parisian  theatres, 
of  that  occasional  excess  of  emphasis  which  was  his  only  fault. 


v/ 


288  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VII. 

learning  to  speak  the  words  of  others  enabled  him  to  concen- 
trate his  undivided  attention  upon  the  arduous  task  of  impro- 
vising his  own.  If  only  he  could  find  the  thing  which  re- 
quired to  be  said,  he  was  sure  to  say  it  in  the  way  that  would 
produce  the  greatest  possible  effect.  His  variety  of  manner, 
we  are  told,  was  quite  as  remarkable  as  the  richness  of  his 
matter.  The  modulations  of  his  voice  responded  exactly  to 
the  nature  of  his  subject  and  the  emotions  of  his  mind.  When 
he  was  piling  up  his  arguments,  so  correct  in  their  sequence, 
and,  as  we  read  them  now  with  cool  and  impartial  judg- 
ments, for  the  most  part  so  irresistible  in  their  weight,  every 
one  of  his  massive  sentences  "  came  rolling  like  a  wave  of  the 
Atlantic,  three  thousand  miles  long."  If  his  cadences  at  times 
waxed  shrill  and  even  inharmonious,  and  his  enunciation  be- 
came almost  preternaturally  rapid,  it  was  only  when  his  hear- 
ers were  so  fascinated  by  his  burning  logic,  and  so  entranced 
by  the  contagion  of  his  vehemence,  that  he  could  hardly  speak 
fast  enough  or  loud  enough  to  satisfy  them.  His  deep  tones, 
which  occurred  rarely,  and  then  but  for  a  moment,  were  re- 
served for  occasions  that  necessitated  a  solemn  appeal  to  the 
compassion  or  the  justice  of  the  assembly  which  he  was  ad- 
dressing, and  never  failed  to  go  straight  to  the  heart  of  every 
one  present.  Feeling  profoundly,  thinking  accurately  and 
strongly,  trained  thoroughly  in  all  the  external  graces  of  ora- 
tory, "  Fox  during  the  American  war,  Fox  in  his  best  days," 
was  declared  by  Grattan  to  have  been  the  best  speaker  that 
lie  ever  heard ;  and  Grattan,  over  and  above  his  experiences 
in  the  Irish  Parliament,  had  formed  his  taste  on  Chatham,  and 
had  lived  through  the  great  days  of  Burke,  Pitt,  and  Sheridan, 
to  hear  Brougham  on  the  "  Orders  in  Council,"  and  Canning 
on  the  "  Emancipation  of  the  Catholics." 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  289 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
1770-1771. 

The  Law  of  Libel. — Great  Speech  by  Charles  Fox,  and  Burke's  Reply. — ■ 
Final  Solution  of  the  Question. — Contest  of  Parliament  with  the  Re- 
porters.— Scene  in  the  Lords. — Indignation  of  the  Commons. — Artful 
Conduct  of  Charles  Fox. — Lord  George  Germaine's  Duel. — The  Ons- 
lows. — Their  Warfare  with  the  Press. — The  King  begins  to  take  an  In- 
terest in  the  Controversy. — A  Night  of  Divisions. — John  Wheble. — In- 
terference of  Wilkes. — Miller  Arrested,  and  Discharged  by  the  Guild- 
hall Bench. — Proceedings  in  the  House  of  Commons  against  the  Lord 
Mayor  and  Alderman  Oliver. — Rebellion  of  the  King's  Friends  against 
Lord  North. — Fiery  Speech  of  Charles  Fox. — Feeling  against  him  in 
the  Country. — March  of  the  City  upon  Westminster. — Violent  Conduct 
of  the  Majority  in  the  House. — Wedderburn's  Defection  from  the  Op- 
position.— Popular  Excitement  outside  Parliament. — Fox  and  North 
Maltreated. — The  Lord  Mayor  and  the  Alderman  Committed  to  the 
Tower. — Their  Imprisonment  and  Release. — Testimonial  to  Wilkes. — 
Establishment  of  the  Freedom  of  Reporting  Debates  in  Parliament. 

Sucn,  in  the  heyday  of  youth,  was  Charles  Fox,  and  such 
was  his  chosen  friend.  Their  joint  stock  of  sagacity  and  folly, 
of  power  and  frailty,  of  sterling  merits  and  grievous  faults, 
was  amply  sufficient  to  have  made  a  score  of  reputations  and 
wrecked  a  hundred  careers.  When  Lord  Holland  was  at 
King's  Gate  or  on  the  Continent,  the  pair  took  up  their  quar- 
ters together  over  Mackie's  Italian  warehouse  in  Piccadilly. 
Some  frequenters  of  Brooks's  were  soft-hearted  enough  to  pity 
the  landlord  of  two  such  seductive  and  unprofitable  lodgers, 
and  predicted  that  his  ruin  would  date  from  the  day  on  which 
he  let  them  his  rooms.  "  On  the  contrary,"  said  Selwyn,  "  so 
far  from  ruining  him,  they  will  make  Mackie's  fortune ;  for 
he  will  have  the  finest  pickles  in  his  house  of  any  man  in 
London  ;"  and  the  phrase,  unceremonious  as  it  was,  conveys  a 
truer  notion  of  Fox  when  just  out  of  his  teens  than  a  solemn 

19 


290  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

and  elaborate  analysis  of  his  character  and  his  policy.  He  was 
not  all  that  he  should  have  been  between  1770  and  1774;  but 
those  who  read  his  life  are  the  last  who  have  a  right  to  com- 
plain of  him.  Politics  are  so  grave  a  trade  that  a  politician  of 
mature  years  can  hardly  be  an  amusing  personage  unless  he 
sinks  into  the  absurd  and  the  unbecoming ;  and  there  is  there- 
fore all  the  more  reason  to  be  thankful  for  those  few  great 
men  who  have  played  a  foremost  part  at  an  age  when  high 
spirits  and  audacious  actions  are  among  the  most  hopeful 
symptoms  of  future  excellence.  During  the  earliest,  and  much 
the  longest,  portion  of  his  first  Parliament,  Fox,  as  the  spoiled 
child  of  the  worst  House  of  Commons  that  ever  met,  seemed 
bent  upon  ascertaining  how  much  unsound  argument  and  pert 
dogmatism  would  be  tolerated  from  a  ready  and  an  agreeable 
speaker,  and  how  often  it  was  permissible  to  go  in  and  out  of 
place  without  any  adequate  reason  for  leaving  office,  or  justi- 
fication for  resuming  it.  He  did  not  mend  his  ways  until  even 
the  fagot  voters  of  Midhurst  were  tired  of  electing  and  re- 
electing him,  and  until  he  had  exhausted  his  sauciness  and  his 
sophistry  in  declaiming  against  all  the  principles  with  which 
his  name  was  thereafter  to  be  identified,  and  most  of  the 
measures  which  he  himself  or  the  statesmen  bred  in  his 
school  were  some  day  to  place  upon  the  Statute-book. 

The  activity  and  pertinacity  which  the  ministry  displayed 
in  punishing,  or  attempting  to  punish,  the  printers  and  vend- 
ers of  the  "  Letter  to  the  King"  had  gravely  alarmed  every  one 
who  desired  that  the  freedom  of  the  British  press  should  be 
anything  but  an  empty  name.  It  was  idle  to  hope  that  a  na- 
tion would  ever  enjoy  a  political  literature  that  was  at  the 
same  time  outspoken  and  respectable,  while  its  booksellers, 
as  Wilkes  most  truly  said,  "  lived  always  in  a  state  of  jeop- 
ardy, like  soldiers  fighting  for  their  country."  Sustained  and 
effective  criticism  was  impossible  when  a  writer  who  smartly 
assailed  the  measures  of  the  government  was  sure,  sooner  or 
later,  to  be  prosecuted  at  the  expense  of  the  State,  on  a  charge 
of  having  traduced  the  personal  character  of  the  king  or  the 
minister.  The  Opposition  lost  no  time  in  calling  attention 
to  so  pressing  a  danger.     On  the  day  fortnight  after  Parlia- 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  291 

ment  met  for  the  winter  session  of  1770,  a  debate  was  raised 
by  Captain  Constantine  Phipps,  the  member  for  Lincoln,  an 
industrious  and  sententious  youth  who,  as  Lord  Mulgrave, 
was  erelong  to  embark  on  a  course  of  tergiversation  which 
earned  him  an  English  peerage,  a  long  succession  of  richly 
paid  offices,  and  a  couplet  by  Fitzpatrick  worth  all  the  pain- 
fully composed  and  minutely  revised  speeches  that  he  ever 
made  on  either  side  of  any  controversy.1  Captain  Phipps, 
always  eager  to  prove  how  large  a  stock  of  law  might  be 
laid  in  by  a  sailor,  attacked  the  question  on  its  most  techni- 
cal quarter,  and  moved  for  leave  to  introduce  a  bill  limit- 
ing the  right  of  the  attorney-general  to  file  informations  for 
libel.  But,  by  the  time  half  a  dozen  members  had  spoken, 
it  became  evident  that  the  House  was  upon  a  wrong  scent, 
and  that  the  officers  of  the  Crown  might  be  safely  intrusted 
with  the  power  of  filing  what  informations  they  chose,  so 
long  as  it  was  clearly  established  that  a  jury  was  to  decide  the 
issue.  But  Lord  Mansfield's  doctrine,  that  it  was  for  the 
judge  to  determine  whether  a  paper  was  libellous,  while  the 
jury  were  only  concerned  with  the  fact  of  publication,  had 
placed  at  the  mercy  of  himself  and  his  brethren  every  printer 
and  author  in  the  kingdom.  It  was  true  that,  in  the  recent 
trials,  London  juries  had  refused  to  let  out  of  their  own  keep- 
ing the  fortunes  and  liberty  of  their  fellow -citizens.  But 
that  bold  course  had  been  adopted  under  the  influence  of  an 
excited  public  feeling  which  to  a  large  extent  was  temporary 
and  local ;  and  the  tradesmen  of  a  provincial  assize  town,  in 
quiet  times,  could  not  be  expected,  in  direct  contradiction  to 
what  would  be  told  them  from  the  bench,  to  insist  on  usurp- 
ing a  function  which  the  greatest  judge  of  modern  days  had 
repeatedly  and  emphatically  pronounced  not  to  belong  to 
them.      Accordingly,  after   the  lapse   of  another  fortnight, 

1  "  Acute  observers,  who  with  skilful  ken 
Descry  the  characters  of  public  men, 
Exchange  with  pleasure  Elliot,  Lew'sham,  North, 
For  Mulgrave's  tried  integrity  and  worth. 
And  all  must  own  that  worth  completely  tried 
By  turns  experienced  on  every  side." 


292  THE   EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

Sergeant  Glynn,  tutored  by  Shelburne,  who  in  his  turn  had 
been  inspired  by  Chatham,  went  straight  to  the  root  of  the 
matter  by  moving  for  a  committee  which  should  inquire  into 
the  administration  of  justice  in  cases  relating  to  the  press, 
and  clear  up  the  doubts  that  had  been  cast  upon  the  author- 
ity of  juries. 

The  discussion,  in  quality  and  in  duration,  responded  to 
the  importance  of  the  subject.  De  Grey,  the  attorney-gen- 
eral, speaking  with  temper  and  ingenuity,  opposed  the  motion 
on  behalf  of  the  government;  and  he  was  supported  by 
Thurlow,  who,  while  he  showed  his  sense  of  the  gravity  of 
the  question  by  an  unusual  decency  of  language,  made 
amends  to  himself  by  indulging  in  even  more  than  a  usual 
audacity  of  assertion.  After  adjuring  his  brother -members 
to  protect  virtue  from  the  assaults  of  calumny  —  an  appeal 
which,  if  rather  trite,  had  at  any  rate  the  merit  of  being  un- 
selfish— he  proceeded  to  enforce  the  proposition  that  in  State 
libels  it  was  idle  to  hope  for  fairness  from  jurymen,  "who 
might  justly  be  considered  as  parties  concerned  against  the 
Crown."  To  have  proclaimed  the  humiliating  confession 
that  the  subjects  of  the  Crown,  as  then  worn,  must  be  counted 
among  its  enemies,  would  at  happier  periods  of  our  history 
have  been  the  death-blow  to  a  rising  lawyer.  But  Thurlow 
was  as  well  acquainted  as  any  man  living  with  the  source 
which  in  those  days  fed  the  fountain  of  honor;  and  a  decla- 
ration which,  if  made  under  a  sovereign  proud  of  being  a 
constitutional  monarch,  would  have  sent  him  to  pine  on  the 
back  benches  until  his  sin  was  purged  and  forgotten,  exalted 
him  into  being  George  the  Third's  attorney -general  within 
seven  weeks  after  it  had  been  uttered.  The  ministerial  law- 
yers met  with  competent  antagonists  in  the  members  of  their 
own  profession.  Glynn,  Dunning,  and  Wedderburn,  as  Lord 
Chatham  thankfully  acknowledged,  "  stood  with  much  dignity 
and  great  abilities  for  the  transcendent  object  now  at  stake." 
The  da}T,  said  the  old  statesman,  was  a  good  and  a  great  one 
for  the  public. 

But  the  House,  while  it  consented  to  be  edified  by  the  law- 
yers, looked,  as  its  custom  is,  for  amusement  to  the  laymen, 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  293 

and  did  not  look  in  vain.  The  contribution  which  Charles 
Fox  made  towards  the  entertainment  of  his  colleagues  is  in- 
teresting as  the  best  preserved  specimen  of  his  first  manner. 
His  early  speeches  were  glaringly  deficient  on  the  side  both 
of  reason  and  morality;  and  although  his  rhetoric  had  a  cer- 
tain grace  of  its  own,  which  may  be  described  as  the  beaute 
du  diable  of  oratory,  he  seldom  was  on  his  feet  for  three  min- 
utes without  committing  some  offence  against  taste,  and  even 
against  ordinary  propriety.  But  his  youthful  efforts  had  this 
in  common  with  his  mature  performances,  that,  while  he  at- 
tacked it  from  the  wrong  quarter,  he  never  failed  to  go  di- 
rect to  the  heart  of  the  argument.  The  young  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty,  in  this  his  third  session,  had  already  an  eye  for 
the  point  of  a  debate  as  sure  as  that  of  a  heaven-born  general 
for  the  key  of  an  enemy's  position  ;  and  the  memorable  de- 
bate of  the  sixth  of  December,  1770,  as  he  clearly  saw,  turned 
on  the  point  whether,  in  a  trial  of  libel,  the  bench  or  the  box 
should  be  intrusted  with  the  duty  of  giving  what  was  in 
truth  a  verdict  of  guilt  or  innocence.  Choosing  his  ground 
with  more  skill  than  scruple,  he  undertook  to  maintain  the 
preposterous  thesis  that  to  refuse  to  a  judge,  when  sitting  on 
a  case  of  libel,  a  power  which  he  did  not  possess  when  sitting 
on  a  case  of  murder  was  an  insult  to  the  ermine.  And  then, 
by  a  politic  diversion,  managed  with  quite  sufficient  adroit- 
ness to  impose  upon  people  who  did  not  look  too  closely  into 
any  device  which  enabled  them  to  get  their  opponents  round- 
ly and  cleverly  abused,  he  sallied  forth  into  the  tempting 
field  of  general  politics,  and  in  a  torrent  of  nervous  and  ve- 
hement interrogatories  which  concealed  the  poverty  of  his 
matter  and  the  ludicrous  unfairness  of  his  taunts,  he  re- 
proached Glynn  and  his  friends  with  having  called  for  a  dis- 
solution of  the  Parliament  on  the  plea  that  it  no  longer  rep- 
resented the  people. 

"What  are  you  about?"  he  cried  to  the  supporters  of  the 
motion.  "  You  have  yourselves  allowed  that  you  are  no  legal 
House  of  Commons;  that  you  are  de  facto  and  not  de  jure ; 
and  you  are  going  to  arraign  the  venerable  judges  of  West- 
minster Hall,  and  enter  upon  a  revision  of  the  laws  of  the 


294  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

land.  What  have  you  been  doing  for  these  last  two  years  but 
ringing  constantly  in  our  ears  the  contempt  in  which  we  are 
held  by  the  people  ?  Have  you  not  made  these  walls  inces- 
santly echo  with  the  terms  of  reproach  which  you  allege  to 
have  been  cast  upon  us  by  men  of  every  degree — high  and 
low,  rich  and  poor,  learned  and  unlearned  ?  Were  we  not,  and 
are  we  not  still,  according  to  your  account,  held  in  universal 
detestation  and  abhorrence  ?  Does  not  the  whole  empire,  from 
one  end  to  the  other,  reckon  us  equally  weak  and  wicked  ? 
How  can  you,  then,  wTith  a  serious  face,  desire  us  to  undertake 
this  inquiry  in  order  to  satisfy  the  people?  The  people,  if 
your  former  assertions  are  to  be  credited,  will  get  no  good  at 
your  hands.  Who  do  you  think  will  pay  any  attention  to  your 
authority?  From  your  former  confessions,  have  they  the 
right?  They  cannot,  if  they  take  you  at  your  own  words, 
hold  you  or  your  debates  in  any  other  light  than  the  idle 
declamations  of  coffee-house  politicians.  I  have  heard  a  great 
deal  of  the  people,  and  the  cries  of  the  people,  but  where  and 
how  am  I  to  find  out  their  complaints?  As  far  as  my  in- 
quiries have  led  me,  those  complaints  do  not  exist ;  and  as 
long  as  that  is  the  view  of  the  majority  of  this  House  (who 
themselves  are  the  people,  as  being  their  legal  representatives), 
I  shall  continue  to  think  wTith  them." 

The  first  speech  of  a  new  minister,  for  any  human  nature 
that  it  shows,  is  apt  to  be  on  a  level  with  the  diploma  picture 
of  a  Royal  Academician ;  but  such  had  not  been  the  case 
here.  Burke  rose  later  in  the  evening;  and,  though  four 
speakers  had  intervened  between  him  and  Fox,,  the  practised 
statesman  considered  himself  bound  to  exert  all  his  powers  in 
order  to  efface  the  impression  which  had  been  wrought  by  the 
orator  of  one-and-twenty.  He  treated  with  magnificent  dis- 
dain the  pretension  to  speak  for  the  nation  which  had  been 
put  forward  by  one  who  spoke  for  nothing  except  a  peer  and 
his  hay-field.  "  You  the  representatives  of  the  people !"  he 
exclaimed  to  the  long  rows  of  borough-mongers  who  were  sit- 
ting impatient  for  the  vote.  "  You  are  so  far  from  being  the 
representatives  of  the  people  that  you  do  not  know  their 
faces."     At  far  greater  length,  and  with  a  profusion  of  gor- 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  295 

geous  imagery  that  is  now  as  marvellous  to  the  student  as  it 
then  was  distasteful  to  hearers  who  disagreed  with  the  conclu- 
sions which  it  adorned,  he  exposed  the  full  absurdity  of  the 
plea  that  to  advocate  a  revision  of  the  law  was  to  cast  doubts 
upon  the  integrity  of  the  judges.  If  any  one  will  be  at  the 
pains — the  amply  rewarded  pains — to  read  aloud  twenty  con- 
secutive sentences  from  these  speeches  of  Burke  and  of  Fox, 
however  much  he  may  be  personally  convinced  that  the  for- 
mer was  wholly  in  the  right  and  the  latter  indefensibly  in  the 
wrong,  he  will  readily  understand  which  of  the  two  would  be 
most  acceptable  to  a  mob  of  gentlemen  who  had  had  too  much 
wine  with  their  dinners,  and  saw  themselves  rapidly  losing 
the  hope  of  getting  enough  sleep  in  their  beds.1  Quite  apart 
from  the  substance  of  what  they  respectively  were  saying,  Fox 
pleased  where  Burke  wearied,  and  occasionally  even  repelled  ; 
and  the  merits,  or  rather  the  defects,  of  the  cause  espoused  by 


1  "  My  sole  object,"  said  Burke,  "  in  supporting  the  proposed  inquiry 
is  the  public  welfare  and  the  acquittal  of  the  judges.  Till  this  step  is 
taken,  in  vain  do  they  pretend  to  superior  sanctity.  In  vain  do  some  gen- 
tlemen tread  their  halls  as  holy  ground,  or  reverence  their  courts  as  the 
temples  of  the  Divinity.  To  the  people  they  appear  the  temples  of  idols 
and  false  oracles;  or  rather  as  the  dwellings  of  truth  and  justice  con- 
verted into  dens  of  thieves  and  robbers.  For  what  greater  robbers  can 
there  be  than  those  who  rob  men  of  their  liberties  ?  No  man  here  has  a 
greater  veneration  than  I  have  for  the  doctors  of  the  law ;  and  it  is  for 
that  reason  that  I  would  thus  render  their  characters  as  pure  and  unsul- 
lied as  the  driven  snow.  But  will  any  of  you  pretend  that  this  at  present 
is  the  case  ?  Are  not  their  temples  profaned  ?  Has  not  pollution  entered 
them,  and  penetrated  even  to  the  Holy  of  Holies  ?  Are  not  the  priests 
suspected  of  being  no  better  than  those  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  or  rather 
of  being  worse  than  those  of  Baal  ?  And  has  not  the  fire  of  the  people's 
wrath  almost  consumed  them  ?"  Let  anybody  who  possesses  even  the 
rudiments  of  an  imagination  depict  to  himself  the  effect  of  such  a  string 
of  questions  addressed  to  a  noisy  House  of  Commons  within  half  an  hour 
of  midnight.  The  passage  which  follows  is  still  more  painfully  over- 
drawn, and  might  well  have  been  regarded  as  blasphemous  even  by  less 
jealous  defenders  of  religion  than  the  gentlemen  who  had  expelled 
Wilkes  for  impiety.  If  portions  of  it  had  not  been  taken  down  at  the 
time  by  Mr.  Henry  Cavendish,  it  would  be  difficult  to  believe  that  it  ever 
could  have  been  spoken. 


296  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

the  younger  advocate  rendered  his  eloquent  effrontery  irre- 
sistibly attractive  to  an  assembly  which  was  wanting  alike  in 
the  dignity  of  a  senate  and  in  the  business-like  self-respect  of 
a  genuinely  representative  body.  The  House  refused  an  in- 
quiry by  a  great  majority,  which,  when  the  question  was  re- 
newed in  the  course  of  the  next  session,  was  swelled  into  a 
very  great  majority  indeed.  The  law  of  libel  remained  in  a 
condition  of  perilous  uncertainty  until,  after  the  lapse  of  two- 
and-twenty  years — just  in  time  to  shield  the  writers  of  the 
popular  party  from  the  most  formidable  judicial  persecution 
that  had  menaced  it  since  the  Stuarts — Fox,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  the  aged  Camden,  carried  through  Parliament  a  bill 
which  vindicated  the  rights  of  juries  as  against  the  claims 
of  the  bench,  and  secured  that  no  critic  of  the  government 
should  be  arbitrarily  punished  on  the  pretext  that,  in  the 
performance  of  what  is  essentially  a  public  service,  he  had  in- 
flicted a  private  injury. 

But  there  was  something  which  the  members  of  that  bad 
Parliament  liked  even  less  than  criticism.  It  was  of  small 
avail  that  Publius  Valerius  and  Mucius  Scsevola  should  be  re- 
strained from  calling  them  tyrants  and  mercenaries  in  the 
newspapers  as  long  as  their  constituents  had  the  opportunity 
of  readying  what  they  themselves  said  in  debate.  Conscious 
of  belonging  to  the  class  with  regard  to  whom  truth  is  the 
worst  of  libels,  Lord  North  and  his  followers  esteemed  the  re- 
porter an  equally  dangerous  enemy  with  the  pamphleteer,  and 
were  short-sighted  enough  to  imagine  that  he  could  be  the 
more  easily  crushed  of  the  two.  The  campaign  began  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  On  the  twenty-second  of  November,  1770, 
Chatham,  in  a  speech  of  extraordinary  power,  had  inveighed 
against  all  who  lived  by  the  plunder  of  their  country,  from 
the  lofty  robber  of  Asia  drawn  in  his  coach-and-six,  or  his 
coach-and-eight,  down  to  the  broker  who  walked  on  foot  to 
'Change  Alley  with  a  scrap  of  secret  information  which  had 
been  whispered  into  his  ear  by  a  minister.  The  Peers  would 
not  have  cared  how  often  their  distinguished  colleague  might 
ease  his  soul  by  declaiming  against  peculation  and  corruption, 
as  long  as  they  were  comfortably  shut  up  by  themselves  to 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  297 

sneer  and  listen.  But  it  was  a  very  different  matter  when  the 
one  man  in  England  whose  words  had  real  weight  used  the 
floor  of  their  House  as  a  platform  from  which  to  address  his 
uncompromising  philippics  to  the  more  numerous  public  out- 
side, who  had  no  part  in  the  taxes  but  to  pay  them,  and  noth- 
to  do  with  coaches  except  to  count  the  horses.  The  ministers 
were  already  deliberating  on  the  measures  to  be  taken  for 
damming  up  the  eloquence  of  their  terrible  adversary  behind 
barriers  within  which  it  could  work  little  harm  to  them  or  to 
their  system,  when  their  movements  were  quickened  by  an 
attack  of  an  unexpected  nature  from  a  hardly  less  ominous 
quarter.  It  was  Philip  Francis,  as  we  now  know,  who  had 
taken  down  from  memory  and  given  to  the  world  the  speech 
of  the  twenty-second  of  November;  and  in  such  hands  it  is 
needless  to  say  that  Chatham's  invective  had  lost  nothing  of 
its  terrors.  And  now,  on  the  seventh  of  December,  there  ap- 
peared in  Mr.  Woodf  all's  journal  a  passage  from  a  speech  of 
the  Duke  of  Grafton,  which  bore  only  too  evident  signs  of 
having  been  reported  with  literal  fidelity,  accompanied  by  the 
unsparing  comments  of  a  critic  who  signed  himself  Domitian, 
and  who  was  as  much  Junius  as  Junius  was  Philip  Francis. 
The  blow  was  too  severe  for  the  courage  even  of  the  boldest. 
It  was  sufficiently  disagreeable  for  the  supporters  of  the  gov- 
ernment to  be  held  up  to  odium  in  the  phrases  of  the  greatest 
living  orator,  sharpened,  as  if  they  had  not  point  enough  al- 
ready, by  the  vindictive  industry  of  the  most  formidable 
among  living  writers.  But  that  ordeal  was  nothing  to  the 
discovery  that  they  themselves  were  liable  to  be  denied  the 
services  of  the  gentle  art  which  lends  eloquence  to  the  stam- 
merer, and  concentration  to  the  diffuse,  and  something  of  log- 
ic and  sequence  to  the  incoherent  observations  of  the  dull. 
What  had  been  uttered  outright,  without  a  thought  of  the 
morning's  reckoning,  might  be.  served  up  on  the  morrow,  un- 
revised,  uncorrected,  unexpurgated-^pjjnctuated  with  such  in- 
fernal skill  as  to  reproduce  a  lively  image  of  the  least  admira- 
ble peculiarities  in  the  speaker's  manner — for  the  entertain- 
ment of  a  public  that,  in  its  ignorant  self-conceit,  had  nothing 
of  the  indulgent  fellow-feeling  with  which  the  House  of 


298  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

Commons,  and  still  more  the  House  of  Lords,  regards  a  min- 
ister who  is  summoned  to  discourse  at  a  moment's  notice  on  a 
question  over  which  he  has  never  expended  a  moment's 
study.  Few,  indeed,  were  the  politicians  who  could  face  with 
composure  the  prospect  of  standing  daily  in  such  a  pillory. 

The  emergency  was  just  one  of  those  which  the  govern- 
ment felt  itself  capable  of  meeting.  On  the  third  day  after 
Domitian's  letter  had  been  printed,  the  Duke  of  Manchester 
was  calling  the  attention  of  the  Lords  to  the  defenceless  state 
of  the  nation,  which  was  then  in  the  thick  of  what  still  prom- 
ised to  be  a  very  pretty  quarrel  with  Spain.  He  had  got  into 
the  middle  of  a  sentence  about  a  ship  that  was  laid  up  at 
Gibraltar  on  account  of  her  not  being  sufficiently  water-tight 
to  keep  the  sea,  when  Lord  Gower  rose,  and  desired  that  the 
House  might  be  cleared  of  strangers.  How,  he  asked,  were 
their  lordships  to  know  whether  there  might  not  be  emissa- 
ries of  Spain  under  their  gallery,  spying  out  the  weakness  of 
the  British  navy.  He  had  in  his  pocket  the  speech  of  a  noble 
lord,  printed  from  notes  which  some  nameless  individual  had 
contrived  to  take ;  and  what  one  unscrupulous  person  had 
done  in  order  to  gratify  the  curiosity  of  the  London  coffee- 
houses, another  would  find  means  to  effect  for  the  informa- 
tion df  the  Court  of  Madrid.  There  was  a  standing  order 
that  none  should  enter  their  doors  except  those  who  were 
there  by  right,  and  it  was  high  time  that  such  order  should 
be  enforced.  The  Duke  of  Richmond  exclaimed  energetically 
against  a  step  the  motives  of  which  were  more  than  suspicious ; 
and  he  was  in  the  course  of  suggesting  that  the  disclosures 
which  Lord  Gower  and  the  Bedfords  anticipated  with  well- 
founded  uneasiness  related  to  the  leaky  condition  of  the  Ex- 
chequer rather  than  of  the  Mediterranean  fleet,  when  a  tumult 
arose  such  as  never  again  was  heard  within  those  walls  until 
the  famous  half-hour  when  William  the  Fourth  was  on  his 
way  from  the  palace  to  dissolve  his  first  Parliament.  Then, 
as  on  the  other  rare,  and  almost  secular,  occasions  when  the 
Lords  have  broken  bounds,  the  need  wTas  sorely  felt  of  those 
efficacious  methods  for  restoring  order  which  in  the  last  re- 
sort may  be  employed  by  the  Speaker  of  the  Commons  for 


1770-71.]  CHAKLES  JAMES  FOX.  299 

the  coercion  of  what  is  ordinarily  the  more  boisterous  assem- 
bly. The  remonstrances  of  the  decorous  and  sober-minded 
amon<r  the  Peers  were  drowned  in  an  ignoble  clamor.  Under 
cover  of  the  general  confusion,  Chatham  was  subjected  to  in- 
sults on  which  braver  men  than  those  who  now  hooted  and 
jeered  him  would  never  have  ventured  had  his  voice  been 
audible.  The  Court  lords,  determined  that  no  one  should  I 
call  upon  them  to  defend  their  proceedings,  continued  to  roar,  ' 
"  Clear  the  House!"  with  a  din  through  which  the  Scotch  ac- 
cent was  plainly  distinguishable.  At  length  the  Duke  of 
Eichmond  lost  his  patience.  "  Clear  the  House !"  he  cried. 
"  So  you  will,  of  every  honest  man  ;"  and  out  he  walked,  fol- 
lowed by  a  train  of  peers  which  in  character  and  in  number 
bade  fair  to  accomplish  his  prediction.  Their  departure  was 
the  signal  for  a  fresh  outburst  of  unmannerly  violence.  When 
it  was  noticed  that  the  servants  of  the  House  seemed  reluc- 
tant to  drag  forth  by  their  coat-sleeves  such  intruders  as  Burke 
and  Dunning,1  a  party  of  lords  made  a  rush  at  those  members 
of  the  Commons  who  were  standing  at  the  bar,  and  drove 
them  helter-skelter  into  the  lobby.  The  unseemly  riot  was 
headed  by  two  peers,  on  the  prominence  of  whose  noses  Barre 
afterwards  descanted  with  an  angry  exaggeration  which  indi- 
cated how  gladly,  in  any  place  where  they  were  not  protected 
by  privilege,  the  fiery  soldier  would  have  pulled  them.  The 
members  of  the  Commons,  charged,  as  they  were,  with  the 
duty  of  presenting  a  bill  to  the  Upper  House,  insisted  upon 
being  allowed  to  return  and  perform  their  errand.  Lord 
Mansfield,  who,  while  the  great  seal  was  in  commission,  acted 
as  Speaker  in  the  Lords,  came  forward  from  his  place  to  meet 
them.  They  made  their  three  bows,  and  delivered  their  mes- 
sage. Lord  Mansfield  had  got  back  to  the  woolsack,  "  as  a 
cricketer,"  said  Sir  George  Savile,  "gets  back  to  his  wicket," 

1 "  When  the  deputy  black  rod,''  said  Burke,  "  pulled  me  by  this  arm, 
I  seemed  not  to  feel  any  personal  resentment ;  because  the  deputy  black 
rod  is  no  very  gigantic  man,  and  he  is,  besides,  a  friend  whom  for  many 
reasons  I  love  and  honor."  Dunning  was  among  the  most  angry.  "I 
went"  (so  he  informed  the  Commons)  "  to  the  House  of  Lords,  not  to  lis- 
ten to  their  ridiculous  debates,  but  to  say  a  few  words  to  a  member  of  it." 


300  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

when  the  indignant  deputation  was  once  more  expelled  amidst 
a  volley  of  the  exclamations  with  which  the  sixpenny  gallery 
was  accustomed  to  decide  the  fate  of  a  bad  actor  in  those 
days  of  dramatic  rigor.  "  Such  a  scene,"  said  Francis,  "  I 
never  saw  since  the  damning  of  the  French  dancers." 

When  the  ejected  members  were  safe  within  their  own  pre- 
cincts, and  had  made  their  statement  about  the  usage  to  which 
they  had  been  exposed,  the  self-respect  of  gentlemen  for  a  mo- 
ment associated  all  parties  in  a  common  determination  to  re- 
sent so  intolerable  an  affront.  The  first  to  call  for  a  policy 
of  retaliation  was  no  less  devoted  a  ministerialist  than  Mr. 
George  Onslow ;  and  he  was  seconded  by  so  keen  a  Whig  as 
William  Burke,  who  had  come  straight  from  a  place  which  he 
ventured  to  describe  as  a  bear-garden  in  presence  of  an  audi- 
ence, the  older  among  whom  knew  what  a  bear-garden  really 
was.  Such  was  the  irritation  excited  among  the  adherents  of 
the  cabinet  by  the  explosion  of  a  plot  which  the  cabinet  itself 
had  hatched  that  consequences  very  embarrassing  to  the  gov- 
ernment would  inevitably  have  ensued  if  the  House  of  Com- 
mons had  been  left  for  another  half-hour  to  the  guidance  of 
its  own  unprompted  instincts.  Few  would  care  to  risk  an 
established,  and  still  fewer  a  growing,  reputation  by  running 
counter  to  a  sentiment  which  appeared  to  be  as  universal  as 
it  was  natural ;  but  Charles  Fox  had  got  from  Lord  Holland 
a  courage  and  a  readiness  which  formed  almost  the  only  por- 
tion of  his  inheritance,  mental  or  material,  that  he  retained 
through  life.1  The  fiercer  the  storm,  the  more  completely  in 
his  element  was  one  who  possessed  beyond  his  fellows  that 
willingness  "  to  go  out  in  all  weathers  "  which  Gerard  Hamil- 
ton,2 with  the  appreciative  envy  of  a  vain  and  timid  speaker, 

1  So  visible  was  the  stamp  of  his  paternity  on  all  which  Charles  Fox 
said,  and  on  his  manner  of  saying  it,  that  the  reporters  of  those  clays 
could  not  refrain  from  breaking  into  their  account  of  the  parliamentary 
business  to  observe  that  the  lad  looked  the  very  image  of  his  father. — 
Parliamentary  History,  January  25, 1771. 

a  Hamilton  used  this  expression  to  Lord  Charlemont  with  reference  to 
John  Hely  Hutchinson,  whom  most  assuredly  the  dirtiest  weather  never 
kept  in  port  as  long  as  there  was  a  prospect  of  salvage-money.    Of  Ham- 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  301 

pronounced  to  be  the  quality  of  all  others  that  made  an  in 
estimable  debater.  Putting  himself  calmly  but  resolutely  in 
the  front  of  his  flustered  official  superiors,  the  junior  lord  re- 
minded the  House  that  decisions  taken  in  wrath  were  apt  to 
be  repented  at  leisure;  that  to  requite  insult  with  insult  was 
not  the  right  way  of  asserting  its  dignity ;  and  that  the  blow 
which,  by  an  unlucky  accident,  had  fallen  upon  members  of 
their  honorable  body  was  meant  for  the  common  enemies  of 
political  mankind,  the  printers.  When  the  supporters  of  the 
government  heard  a  young  gentleman  who  might  so  safely 
be  trusted  to  adopt  the  illiberal  view  of  every  controversy 
arguing  so  confidently  against  the  prevailing  opinion  of  the 
moment,  they  began  to  perceive  with  consternation  how  nearly 
they  had  been  betrayed  by  their  feelings  into  giving  a  vote 
which  would  have  gratified  their  fellow-countrymen.  Their 
speeches  became  first  moderate  in  tone,  and  then  ambiguous 
in  tendency,  until  the  debate  took  a  turn  which  provided  them 
with  an  excuse  for  definitely  separating  themselves  from  the 
Opposition.  Before  the  sitting  was  over,  the  ministers  had 
recovered  their  customary  majority ;  and,  to  complete  their 
luck,  the  question  soon  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  most  un- 
desirable of  champions,  Lord  George  Sackville,  or  rather  Lord 
George  Germaine ;  for  that  nobleman,  along  with  a  large  ac- 
cession of  fortune,  had  recently  acquired  the  more  valuable 
legacy  of  a  new  name.  Lord  George  announced  himself  as 
having  devised  a  scheme  for  maintaining  the  honor  of  the 
House ;  but  before  his  plan,  which  was  elaborate  almost  to 
grotesqueness,  had  been  discussed  for  half  an  evening,  he  had 
been  told  that  the  honor  of  the  House  had  better  be  com- 
mitted to  somebody  who  had  proved  that  he  could  take  care 
of  his  own.  The  words  were  from  the  mouth  of  a  noted 
duellist,  who  seven  years  before  had  thrown  down  his  glove 
to  Wilkes ;  and  they  were  spoken  at  the  instigation  of  Sir 
James  Lowther,  who  liked  to  get  his  quarrels  fought  for  him, 

ilton  himself  Lord  Charlemont  said  "  that  he  was  the  only  speaker,  among 
the  many  he  bad  heard,  of  whom  he  could  say  with  certainty  that  all  his 
speeches,  however  long,  were  written  and  got  by  heart." 


302  THE   EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

though,  in  the  last  resort,  he  never  lacked  the  courage  to  fight 
them  himself.  Lord  George  had  at  last  the  opportunity  of 
showing  that  the  fatal  hesitation  which  lost  him  his  chance 
of  making  Minden  another  Blenheim  had  nothing  to  do  witli 
the  fear  of  a  horse-pistol.  His  conduct  on  the  ground,  and 
during  the  still  more  trying  period  that  preceded  the  meet- 
ing, cleared  him  effectually  and  forever  from  the  most  pain- 
ful of  all  imputations  to  the  satisfaction  of  everybody  but  the 
king,  who  could  not  bring  himself  to  acknowledge  the  courage 
of  a  politician  who  did  not  happen  at  the  time  to  be  voting 
with  the  Court.1  Parliament,  meanwhile,  in  the  rapt  attention 
with  which  it  invariably  watches  a  personal  incident,  lost  sight 
of  its  corporate  grievances ;  and  an  estrangement  which  had 
nearly  brought  the  Houses  into  open  war  settled  down  into 
an  affectation  of  sulkiness  in  their  mutual  relations,  which 
was  not  likely  to  be  enduring  in  the  case  of  two  assemblies 
so  cordially  in  unison  as  to  the  principles  on  which  the  nation 
ought  to  be  governed.2 

A  hard  frost,  which  kept  even  hunting-men  in  town  during 
the  Christmas  holidays,  enabled  the  supporters  of  the  govern- 
ment in  the  Commons  to  enlighten  themselves  as  to  the  real 


1  Before  placing  himself  opposite  an  adversary  who  meant  mischief, 
and  came  within  a  hair's-breadth  of  doing  it,  Lord  George  took  four 
days  to  settle  his  affairs,  and  make  provision  for  an  infant  son  a  week 
old ;  behaving  all  the  while,  as  we  are  told  by  one  who  disliked  him, 
with  a  cheerful  indifference  that  deceived  his  wife  and  his  whole  family. 
The  deliberation  with  which  he  carried  through  the  affair  was  unfavora- 
bly interpreted  by  his  sovereign.  "  Lord  George  Germaine,"  wrote  George 
the  Third  to  the  prime-minister, "  permitting  so  many  days  to  elapse  be- 
fore he  called  Governor  Johnston  to  an  account  for  the  words  he  made 
use  of  on  Friday,  does  not  give  much  idea  of  his  resolution,  but  that  he 
had  at  length  been  persuaded  by  his  friends  to  take  this  step." 

2  Late  in  the  session  the  Lords  amended  a  money  bill  by  striking  out 
the  provisions  which  offered  a  bounty  upon  the  exportation  of  corn.  The 
Commons,  more  mindful  of  their  ancient  privileges  than  of  the  doctrines 
of  what  was  then  the  most  recent  among  the  sciences,  resented  the  af- 
front by  doing  that  of  which  their  better-mannered  successors  only  talk. 
The  Speaker  tossed  the  bill  over  the  table ;  and  members  of  both  parties, 
as  they  went  out,  kicked  it  along  towards  the  door. 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  303 

meaning  and  object  of  the  course  that  had  been  pursued  in 
the  Lords.  To  be  told  how  swiftly  and  smoothly  business 
was  carried  on  in  the  snug  family  party  which  the  Upper 
House  had  become  ever  since  it  had  been  cleared  of  strangers 
was  worth  the  loss  of  the  best  run  which  the  Duke  of  Grafton 
ever  gave  the  sportsmen  who  had  earned  at  St.  Stephen's  the 
privilege  of  being  invited  to  Wakefield  Lodge  in  order  to 
show  that  they  could  ride  as  straight  as  they  voted.  The 
ministerialists  in  the  Peers  were  never  tired  of  telling  the 
ministerialists  in  the  Commons  how  evident  were  the  symp- 
toms of  vexation  in  Chatham's  countenance  when  he  was  re- 
minded nightly,  by  some  fresh  instance  of  neglect  or  imperti- 
nence, that,  without  the  nation  for  an  audience,  his  power 
was  gone  ;  how  the  secretary  of  state  hardly  made  a  pretence 
of  answering  his  questions  about  the  evacuation  of  Port  Eg- 
mont  and  the  attitude  of  his  Catholic  Majesty ;  and  how  the 
thunder  of  his  eloquence,  as  with  stately  playfulness  he  not 
unfrequently  confessed,  fell  dead  against  the  faded  hangings 
on  which  Flemish  art  had  portrayed  the  defeat  of  the  Arma- 
da— that  tapestry  which,  "  mute  as  ministers,  still  told  more 
than  all  the  cabinet  on  the  subject  of  Spain,  and  the  manner 
of  treating  with  a  haughty  and  insidious  power."  To  see 
Burke  reduced  to  the  same  helpless  plight  was  a  treat  which 
the  Tories  in  the  Lower  House  were  determined  not  to  deny 
themselves ;  and  they  had  this  additional  incentive  to  stir  in 
the  matter  that,  while  the  Lords  had  nothing  to  gain  by  clos- 
ing their  doors  except  an  agreeable  immunity  from  the  cen- 
sorship of  general  public  opinion,  the  Commons,  by  the  ofii- 
ciousness  of  the  reporters,  were  exposed  to  the  more  particu- 
lar and  invidious  supervision  of  their  constituents.  It  was 
intolerable  (such  was  the  catchword  in  the  government  ranks) 
that  gentlemen  should  be  misrepresented  to  the  people  whom 
they  were  chosen  to  represent.1  In  accordance  with  this  one- 
sided but  convenient  view  of  the  case,  Colonel  George  Ons- 

1  The  words  are  those  of  Mr.  Thomas  De  Grey,  member  for  Norfolk, 
brother  of  the  future  Lord  Walsingham  ;  and  the  substance  of  them  was 
repeated  in  every  second  speech  that  was  made  during  thirteen  evenings 
of  February  and  March,  1771. 


304  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

low,  on  the  fifth  of  February,  1771,  reminded  the  Commons 
that  for  any  person  to  presume  to  give  in  the  newspapers  an 
account  or  abstract  of  their  debates  had  been  declared  a 
breach  of  privilege,  to  be  visited  on  the  offender  witli  the  ut- 
most severity.  The  resolutions  which  embodied  this  imperi- 
ous doctrine,  passed  as  long  back  as  the  first  twelvemonth  of 
the  late  reign,  had  been  judiciously  allowed  to  slumber  by 
the  common-sense  of  six  successive  parliaments;  but  Colonel 
Onslow  now  persuaded  the  House  to  revive  and  enforce  them 
by  ordering  them  to  be  printed  in  the  votes.  The  next  move 
in  the  game  was  intrusted  to  one  Sir  John  Turner,  who,  on 
an  afternoon  when  Sir  George  Savile  was  to  bring  forward 
in  a  new  shape  the  old  question  of  the  Middlesex  election, 
took  upon  himself  to  desire  that  strangers  should  be  excluded 
on  the  ground  that  the  House  was  too  full  to  be  pleasant ; 
a  pretext  which  immediately  afterwards  the  ministerialists 
deprived  of  any  semblance  of  plausibility  by  crowding  noisily 
out  to  their  dinners  the  instant  that  Sir  George  was  on  his 
feet. 

The  London  editors  had  begun  to  discover  that  their  nar- 
ratives of  the  proceedings  of  a  newly  established  debating 
society,  or  a  certain  club,  or  the  Senate  of  Rome,  or  the  Sen- 
ate of  Lilliput,  or  whatever  the  pseudonym  might  be  which 
in  their  prudent  ingenuity  they  selected  for  the  British  House 
of  Commons,  attracted  more,  and  ever  more,  subscribers  as 
time  went  on ;  and  they  were  furious  at  the  notion  of  such  a 
blow  having  been  struck  against  their  interests  by  members 
whose  reputation  for  being  able  to  speak  half  a  dozen  sen- 
tences of  grammar  was  due  to  the  good  offices  of  the  reporter. 
For  a  month  to  come  the  whole  legion  of  Gazetteers  and  Ad- 
vertisers and  Posts  and  Chronicles  brought  to  bear  upon  their 
puny  tyrants  a  perfect  deluge  of  the  awkward  and  bom- 
bastic wit  peculiar  to  the  eighteenth -century  newspaper,  at 
which  it  is  so  difficult  to  imagine  how  the  readers  of  "  Tris- 
tram Shandy  "  could  contrive  to  laugh.  In  every  degree  of 
false  taste,  and  with  endless  variety  of  extravagant  epithets 
and  inapplicable  similes,  the  world  was  invited  to  consider 
the  intricate  problem  whether  the  colonel,  who  was  the  great 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  305 

Speaker's  nephew,  or  the  squire,  who  was  his  son,  had  done 
the  most  to  render  the  name  of  Onslow  ridiculous.  The  Ons- 
lows,  meanwhile,  were  busily  engaged  in  carrying  on  the 
warfare  according  to  their  own  notions  of  strategy — inter- 
rupting the  serious  concerns  of  the  nation  by  complaints  that 
one  of  them  had  been  called  "  a  sorry  motion-maker,"  and 
the  other  "  little  cocking  George ;"  and  moving  that  para- 
graphs should  be  read  at  the  table,  and  printers  hauled  to  the 
bar,  and  royal  proclamations  issued  in  the  London  Gazette 
offering  fifty  pounds  a  head  for  the  apprehension  of  delin- 
quents whose  crime  consisted  in  having  expressed  the  opin- 
ion that  of  two  silly  members  of  Parliament  it  was  not  easy 
to  say  which  was  the  silliest. 

During  some  weeks  the  self-appointed  inquisitors  of  the 
press  took  very  little  for  their  trouble.  Their  intended  vic- 
tims were  not  so  simple  as  to  march  into  the  lion's  mouth. 
"  You  are  like  Glendower,"  said  Charles  Fox,  who  could  not 
resist  a  quotation  from  the  dramatists  even  when  it  hit  his 
friends.  "  You  can  call  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep ;  but  the 
question  is,  will  the  spirits  come  when  you  call  them  V  The 
deputy  sergeant,  armed  with  the  Speaker's  warrant,  attended 
eight  times  in  one  afternoon  at  the  office  of  the  Middlesex 
Journal,  and  was  informed  on  each  occasion  that  the  master 
had  just  stepped  out,  but  might  be  expected  back  at  any  mo- 
ment— a  farce  which  was  repeated  at  intervals  throughout 
the  two  following  days,  until  the  servant  who  answered  the 
door  could  not  keep  his  countenance  while  he  delivered  the 
message.  The  more  respectable  members  of  the  Commons 
were  heartily  ashamed  of  seeing  Parliament  committed  to  a 
contest  in  which  its  cause  wras  as  indefensible  as  its  adversa- 
ries were  insignificant.  "  The  French  Court,"  said  Mr.  Sey- 
mour, M  issuing  forth  with  their  jack-boots  and  gilt  coaches  to 
hunt  a  little  hare  was  an  august  and  rational  spectacle  com- 
pared with  the  aspect  of  a  senate  bribing  shop-boys  to  peach 
upon  their  employer."  And  the  los3  of  dignity  was  even  a 
less  evil  than  the  waste  of  time.  Since  the  House  last  met — 
it  might  almost  be  said,  since  it  was  first  elected — nothing  had 
been  done  to  provide  even  an  instalment  of  the  legislation 

"20 


\1 


306  THE  EA11LY    HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

which  the  ever-changing  circumstances  of  a  vigorous  and 
growing  community,  then  as  now,  unceasingly  demanded. 
Admiral  Frankland,  a  brave  and  smart  seaman  who,  when  an 
unexpected  death  had  turned  him  into  a  baronet  and  a  land- 
owner, thought  himself  bound  to  come  up  to  Westminster  and 
lend  a  hand  in  doing  the  business  of  the  country  ashore,  told 
his  colleagues  that  in  their  quarrels  about  privilege  they 
would  show  ill  by  the  side  of  a  parcel  of  sailors  at  Wapping. 
"Is  there  a  word/'  he  cried,  "ever  said  in  this  House  that 
leads  to  the  good  of  the  nation  ?  I  hear  so  much  of  the  honor 
of  Parliament  that  I  am  sick  of  the  very  name."  At  length 
those  who  held  that  the  honor  of  Parliament  demanded  of  it 
to  show  that  it  could  produce  something  besides  floods  of 
barren  rhetoric,  and  a  fresh  scandal  every  session,  prevailed 
so  far  that  an  entire  evening  wTas  devoted  to  a  measure  which 
would  be  of  some  practical  advantage  if  carried,  and  which 
it  required  some  experience  and  special  knowledge  to  discuss. 
Sir  George  Colebrooke,  the  Chairman  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany, a  man  of  mark  in  politics,  and  with  a  tincture  of  the 
learning  which  became  hereditary  in  his  family,  presented  a 
bill  for  enabling  the  directors  to  enlarge  their  European  army, 
and  beat  up  for  recruits  among  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ire- 
land. With  Hyder  Ali  parading  his  cavalry  round  the  fort 
at  Madras,  the  Company  was  likely,  for  some  time  forward, 
to  have  ample  employment  for  bayonets  of  any  creed.  A 
debate  ensued  of  high  interest  and  importance;  the  com- 
mittee on  the  bill  was  fixed  for  the  thirteenth  of  March  ;  and 
the  better  men  of  both  parties  were  congratulating  each 
other  on  the  House  having,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  settled 
down  to  work,  when  a  piece  of  folly  and  mischief  more  fla- 
grant than  any  which  had  preceded  it  scattered  to  the  winds 
all  their  hopes  of  getting  something  accomplished  which 
would  be  of  service  to  the  public  or  of  credit  to  themselves. 

The  Onslows  had  already  been  busy  for  some  weeks  before 
their  zeal  met  wTith  approval  in  the  highest  quarter.  It  was 
not  that  the  king  entertained  any  sympathy  for  the  reporters, 
or  any  glimmering  of  a  notion  that  their  humble  but  arduous 
calling  was  useful,  or  even  innocent.     "  It  is  highly  fteces- 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  307 

sary,"  lie  wrote  to  Lord  North  as  late  as  the  twenty-first  of 
February,  "  that  this  strange  and  lawless  method  of  publish- 
ing debates  in  the  paper  should  be  put  a  stop  to.  But  is  not 
the  House  of  Lords  the  best  court  to  bring  such  miscreants 
before,  as  it  can  fine  as  well  as  imprison,  and  as  the  Lords 
have  broader  shoulders  to  support  any  odium  that  this  salu- 
tary measure  may  occasion  in  the  minds  of  the  vulgar?" 
But  as  time  went  on,  and  the  incidents  of  the  squabble  thick- 
ened, his  Majesty  began  to  feel  the  interest  of  a  situation 
resembling,  in  many  of  its  leading  features,  that  memorable 
affair  of  the  North  Briton,  which  had  hitherto  been  the  event 
of  his  reign.  It  was  like  old  days  to  read  how  Mr.  Jeremiah 
Dyson,  a  retainer  of  the  Court,  for  whose  benefit  a  job  was 
then  being  perpetrated  which  proved  too  much  for  the  pa- 
tience even  of  the  Irish  Parliament,  had  been  called  "  the 

d n  of  this  country  "  by  the  St.  James's  Chronicle  in  its 

account  of  the  "  Debates  of  the  Council  of  Utopia ;"  how  a 
bookseller  had  been  ordered  into  custody  for  contempt  be- 
cause, when  he  was  invited  to  attend  in  the  name  of  Mr. 
Speaker,  he  replied  that  he  did  not  know  any  such  gentleman, 
so  that  the  message  could  not  be  for  him ;  and  how  Dowdes- 
well  and  Burke  and  Dunning  had  been  overpowered  by 
obedient  majorities  when  they  endeavored  to  recall  their  col- 
leagues into  the  path  of  manliness  and  prudence.  Scenting 
the  familiar  battle  from  afar,  George  the  Third  insisted  with 
Lord  North,  who  had  never  liked  the  business  from  the  first, 
that  the  contest  between  Parliament  and  the  press  should  be 
fought  out  to  the  end,  however  much  the  public  peace  might 
be  endangered,  and  however  man}7  measures  of  public  utility 
might  have  to  be  postponed  or  sacrificed. 

On  Tuesday,  the  twelfth  of  March,  Colonel  Onslow,  with 
an  apology  to  his  brother-members  for  showing  them  poorer 
sport  than  he  could  wish,  announced  that  he  should  bring  be- 
fore them  three  more  brace  of  printers.  His  insolent  levity 
met  with  a  warm  response  from  the  dense  ranks  of  the  court- 
iers, who  were  present  in  ominous  force,  with  Rigby  for  their 
fugleman,  taking  from  him  the  word  of  command  for  their 
votes  and  the  cue  for  their  cheers ;  while  the  prime-minister  sat 


308  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

helpless,  silent,  and  miserable,  watching  the  assembly,  which 
he  was  officially  supposed  to  lead,  disgrace  itself  as  no  House 
of  Commons  ever  disgraced  itself  before  or  since.  One  such 
night  was  known  during  the  crisis  of  the  great  Reform  Bill. 
One  such  night  will  never  be  forgotten  by  the  members  of 
the  Parliament  which  has  lately  passed  into  history.  But  on 
the  twelfth  of  July,  1831,  and  on  the  thirty-first  of  July,  1877, 
the  power  of  a  majority  was  resolutely  and  even  ruthlessly 
asserted,  with  the  object  in  the  one  case  of  establishing  the 
liberties  of  the  people,  and  in  the  other  of  protecting  the 
business  character  of  the  House  of  Commons;  whereas  in 
March,  1771,  the  stronger  of  the  two  parties  was  contending 
for  a  cause  as  reprehensible  as  the  tactics  employed  were  vi- 
olent and  unusual.  From  mid-day  till  morning  the  war  of 
words  and  votes  went  on.  The  adherents  of  the  Court  (for 
those  among  the  ministers  who.  were  not  king's  friends  by 
profession  confined  their  exertions,  to  walking  in  and  out  of 
the  lobby  with  an  air  of  lassitude  and  disgust  which  they  took 
no  pains  to  dissemble)  worked  steadily  through  the  list,  mov- 
ing and  carrying  by  three  to  pne,  and  five  to  one,  and  at  last 
by  seven  to  one,  that  such  and  such  a  newspaper  be  read  at 
the  table,  and  such  and  such  a  printer  do  attend  at  the  bar; 
while  the  Opposition,  on  the  other  side,  fought  every  case  with 
a  display  of  proficiency  in  the  art  of  obstruction  that  was  a 
century  in  advance  of  their  epoch,  and  intercalated  at  least 
one  motion  for  adjournment  between  each  proposal  of  the 
government.  Brilliant  little  spurts  of  oratory  relieved  the 
weariness,  without  improving  the  temper,  of  the  combatants. 
Barre  exclaimed  against  the  inconsistency  of  setting  in  mo- 
tion the  despotic  authority  of  Parliament  because  an  obscure 
supporter  of  Lord  North  had  been  called,  more  truly  than 
civilly,  a  paltry  insect,  at  a  time  when  the  grossest  calumnies 
against  so  respected  an  opponent  of  the  ministry  as  the  Duke 
of  Portland  were  published  day  after  day  by  an  adventurer 
whom  the  Earl  of  Sandwich  had  rewarded  with  a  living  that 
was  in  the  gift  of  the  Crown.1     A  dispute  as  to  which  of  two 

1  The  assailant  of  the  Duke  of  Portland  was  the  Scotchman  of  Gold- 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  309 

members  had  been  the  first  to  get  upon  his  legs  drew  from 
Burke  a  withering  impeachment  of  the  novel,  improper,  and 
irregular  doctrine  of  the  Speaker's  eye ;  and  the  scruples  of 
the  great  constitutional  philosopher  could  not  be  set  at  rest 
until  an  honest  attempt  had  been  made  to  define  the  proper- 
ties of  that  magic  organ  in  a  solemn  declaratory  resolution. 
The  absurdity  of  the  enterprise  to  which  the  British  senate 
had  stooped  remains  to  all  time  reflected  on  the  pages  of  its 
journals.  The  childish  malice  of  this  attack  upon  the  free- 
dom of  the  press,  and  upon  the  right  of  the  nation  to  know 
how  its  own  affairs  were  managed,  inspired  the  defenders  of 
those  great  principles  with  a  grim  humor  that  overflowed  from 
their  speeches  into  the  formal  amendments  on  which  they 
challenged  the  decision  of  Parliament.  When  it  had  been 
resolved  that  the  publisher  of  the  London  Packet  should  be 
summoned  to  the  bar,  a  quiet  Whig  member,  who  had  never 
before  got  nearer  to  a  joke  than  an  occasional  stock-quotation 
from  Horace,  proposed  that  the  man  should  be  ordered  to  at- 
tend, "  together  with  all  his  compositors,  pressmen,  correctors, 
and  devils;"  and  Burke's  ironical  argument  against  striking 
out  the  last  of  the  four  classes  is  among  the  happiest  samples 
of  his  lighter  vein.  When  it  came  to  the  turn  of  a  newspaper 
which  had  attempted  to  steer  clear  of  the  quicksands  of  priv- 
ilege by  substituting  in  its  report  of  the  debates  the  names  of 
constituencies  for  the  surnames  of  their  members,  Barre"  moved 
that  "  Mr.  Constantine  Lincoln,"  and  "  Jeremiah  Weymouth, 

Esquire,  the  d n  of  this  country,"  were  not  members  of  the 

House.  Between  daylight  and  daylight  the  two  parties  had 
tested  their  strength  in  three-and-twenty  divisions,  each  of 
them  preceded  and  followed  by  bitter  mutual  reproaches,  in 
which  the  Speaker  bore  his  part  with  an  emphasis  such  as  in 
our  more  sedate  times  would  sound  strangely  from  the  chair. 

smith's  "  Haunch  of  Venison,"  who  wrote  "  Cinna  "  and  owned  to  "  Pa- 
nurge."  He  was  chaplain  to  Sandwich,  and  in  January  of  this  very  year 
had  been  presented  to  the  rectory  of  Simonburn  in  Northumberland. 
Sandwich's  connection  with  the  Church  was,  in  more  ways  than  one,  pe- 
culiar. He  had  two  mistresses,  who  were  respectively  married  to,  and 
sought  in  marriage  by,  two  clergymen  who  died  on  the  gallows. 


310  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

The  government  had  begun  the  evening  with  a  following  of 
a  hundred  and  forty ;  but  when,  at  five  in  the  morning,  the 
yeas  for  the  last  time  had  gone  forth  to  be  counted,  barely 
half  as  many  haggard  and  angry  men  filed  past  the  extended 
forefinger  of  Charles  Fox,  who  was  acting  as  teller  with  the 
jovial  energy  of  one  whose  usual  bedtime  was  only  just  ap- 
proaching. 

When  the  House  met  on  the  Thursday,  three  or  four  of  the 
printers  appeared  at  the  bar,  and  were  reprimanded  on  their 
knees  in  spite  of  the  most  piteous  assurances  that  their  sale 
would  be  ruined  if  they  were  forbidden  to  publish  the  de- 
bates. It  took  no  less  than  twelve  hours,  and  as  many  pro- 
cessions in  and  out  of  the  lobby,  to  get  this  dismal  ceremony 
accomplished  in  the  teeth  of  the  working  members,  who  were 
irritated  at  being  kept  from  the  Indian  Army  Bill,  and  of  the 
Whigs,  who  were  full  of  fight  ever  since  their  recent  perform- 
ance, about  which  they  showed  an  inclination  to  boast  which 
excited  the  loudly  expressed  disgust  of  Charles  Fox.  Burke, 
who  was  never  in  greater  force,  found  it  necessary  to  make 
four  speeches  before  he  had  said  all  he  had  to  say  about  the 
satisfaction  with  which  he  looked  back  upon  his  twenty-three 
divisions.  "  Posterity,"  he  cried,  "  will  bless  the  pertinacious- 
ness  of  that  day."  But  Burke  and  his  friends  needed  not  to 
wait  till  another  generation  for  a  recognition  of  their  labors. 
Their  resolute  and  patriotic  conduct  had  aroused  in  the  hearts 
of  their  contemporaries  a  spirit  more  than  a  match  for  the 
unwieldy  and  half-hearted  tyranny  of  a  House  of  Commons 
which  was  divided  against  itself.  The  citizens  of  London, 
who,  with  their  compact  organization  and  long  habits  of  po- 
litical discipline,  proudly  regarded  themselves  as  the  regular 
army  of  freedom,  saw  that  a  crisis  had  arrived  which  made  it 
their  duty  to  take  the  field ;  and  their  operations  were  plan- 
ned and  directed  by  a  general  who  had  fought  over  every 
inch  of  the  ground  against  far  more  formidable  odds  than  he 
now  was  likely  to  encounter.  Before  the  Speaker  went  to 
bed  that  night,  there  had  been  placed  in  his  hands  a  packet, 
the  contents  of  which  could  have  left  little  doubt  on  the  mind 
of  one  so  intimately  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  past 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  311 

eight  years  as  Sir  Fletcher  Norton  that  Wilkes  had  already 
his  finger  in  the  business.  John  Wheble,  the  same  publisher 
who  had  kept  the  deputy  sergeant  dancing  attendance  for 
three  livelong  days  in  Paternoster  Kow,  wrote  to  the  effect 
that  a  person  who  represented  himself  to  be  an  officer  of  the 
House  of  Commons  had  called  several  times  at  his  residence 
with  what  purported  to  be  a  warrant  from  the  Speaker ;  and 
that,  being  better  versed  in  printing  than  in  law,  he  had 
thought  it  his  wisest  course  to  lay  the  matter  before  a  learned 
counsel,  a  copy  of  whose  opinion  he  begged  to  transmit  for 
the  information  of  the  Honorable  House.  This  production, 
signed  by  a  Mr.  Morris,  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  and  drawn  up  in 
strict  legal  form — with  case,  questions,  and  answers  all  com- 
plete— was  from  first  to  last  a  piece  of  solemn  impertinence, 
on  which  Voltaire  could  hardly  have  improved.  It  was  no 
unlettered  denizen  of  the  Inns  of  Court  who  argued,  with 
such  abundance  of  subdued  and  apparently  unconscious  hu- 
mor, that  the  paper  which  pretended  to  be  the  Speaker's  war- 
rant was  so  ridiculously  worded  as  to  deprive  it  of  all  show 
of  authenticity  whatsoever ;  that  the  paper  which  pretended 
to  be  a  royal  proclamation,  offering  a  reward  for  the  arrest 
of  an  English  citizen,  had  no  force  in  a  free  country ;  and  that 
the  gentleman  whose  comfort  had  been  disturbed  by  these 
novel  and  unauthorized  methods  of  annoyance  would  do  well 
to  institute  an  action  against  the  promoters,  aiders,  and  abet- 
tors of  proceedings  as  oppressive  in  intention  as  they  were 
nugatory  at  law.1 


1  The  warrant  commenced  with  the  words :  "  Ordered,  that  J.  Wheble 
do  attend  this  house  upon  Tuesday  morning  next."  It  was  signed  "  J. 
Hatsell,  CI.  Dom.  Com. ;"  and,  being  issued  on  a  Thursday,  it  was  dated 
"  die  Jovis,"  after  the  ancient  usage  of  Parliament  which  remained  sacred 
down  to  February,  1866,  when  Latin  was  exchanged  for  English  by  unani- 
mous consent,  as  the  first  act  of  the  first  House  of  Commons  that  was  led 
by  Mr.  Gladstone.  It  may  be  imagined  with  what  feelings  worthy  Mr. 
Hatsell,  who  had  made  out  the  warrant  in  accordance  with  the  time-hon- 
ored forms,  must  have  read  the  following  passages  in  Mr.  Morris's  opinion : 

"  2.  '  J.  Wheble '  is  a  description  of  nobody.  It  might  as  well  have 
been  written  '  eye  Wheble,'  or  '  nose  Wheble.'    Either  of  them  would  be 


312  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

Whoever  might  have  been  responsible  for  this  harmless 
pleasantry,  it  was  succeeded  by  a  practical  joke  of  a  much 
more  serious  nature,  the  authorship  of  which  was  patent  to 
the  world.  On  the  fifteenth  of  March,  the  day  after  he  had 
despatched  his  letter  to  the  Speaker,  Wheble  was  arrested  at 
his  own  desire  by  Carpenter,  a  brother-printer,  who  held  that, 
however  dubious  might  be  the  validity  of  a  royal  proclama- 
tion, there  was  no  need  to  let  fifty  pounds  go  out  of  the  trade. 
The  captor  and  his  victim  went  amicably  to  Guildhall,  where 
care  had  been  taken  that  Wilkes  should  be  the  sitting  justice. 
The  case  was  settled  with  a  promptitude  which  indicated  that 
the  occurrence  had  been  foreseen  and  the  details  minutely 
prearranged.  Wheble  was  at  once  released  from  custody. 
Carpenter  was  first  bound  over  to  appear  at  the  next  quarter- 
sessions  in  answer  to  a  charge  of  assault  and  false  imprison- 
ment, and  then  sent  off  to  Whitehall  to  claim  his  reward  with 
a  certificate  signed  "  John  Wilkes,  Alderman,"  which  it  is  to  be 
hoped  may  be  still  among  the  Treasury  records.  The  next 
document  thrown  off  by  the  handiest  of  pens  was  a  letter  to 
the  secretary  of  state,  reporting  the  steps  which  had  been 
taken  by  the  Guildhall  bench  to  mark  the  illegality  of  an  ar- 
rest made  in  direct  violation  of  the  rights  of  an  Englishman 
and  the  chartered  privileges  of  a  London  citizen.     This  eff li- 


as much  the  name  of  John  Wheble  as  the  former.  Besides,  a  person  is 
not  legally  named  without  a  proper  addition  of  quality  and  abode,  which 
is  not  so  much  as  attempted  in  this  pretended  order. 

"  3.  The  place  of  attendance  is  not  sufficiently  expressed.  '  This  House ' 
is  more  properly  the  house  of  John  Wheble,  where  the  order  wTas  left, 
than  any  other  house ;  for  there  is  no  date  of  place  to  the  order.  Mr. 
Wheble  therefore  best  attended  this  order  by  staying  at  home. 

"  4.  The  date  of  time  being  expressed  in  a  foreign  tongue,  which  an 
Englishman  need  not  understand,  the  day  of  attendance  became  conse- 
quently uncertain;  'Tuesday  morning  next'  having  no  day,  wdiich  it  is 
next,  to  follow. 

"  6.  If  the  House  of  Commons  had  power  to  issue  this  summons,  it 
ought  to  be  signed  by  the  Speaker,  and  not  by  a  person  using  certain 
cabalistic  expressions  wThich  may  possibly  be  construed  to  mean  '  Clerk 
of  the  House  of  Commons.' " 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  313 

sion,  which  breathed  the  tone  of  humble  confidence  befitting 
an  inferior  magistrate  who  has  faced  an  unexpected  difficulty 
in  a  manner  to  win  him  gratitude  in  high  quarters,  was  calcu- 
lated to  produce  a  startling  effect  alike  by  the  intelligence 
which  it  conveyed  and  the  reminiscences  which  it  awakened. 
It  was  not  the  first  envelope  in  that  handwriting  which  the 
secretary  of  state  had  opened ;  for  the  Minister  of  Home  Af- 
fairs was  once  more  the  Earl  of  Halifax,  who  in  1763  had  been 
one  of  the  parties  in  the  celebrated  correspondence  about  the 
seizure  of  Wilkes's  papers.  Those  had  been  days  when  to 
engage  in  controversy  with  a  friendless  outcast  required  no 
great  courage  in  the  master  of  thirty  general  warrants :  but 
times  were  altered ;  and  to  be  addressed  in  a  public  letter  by 
Junius  was  now  hardly  more  trying  to  the  nerves  of  peer  or 
potentate  than  to  be  honored  with  a  private  letter  by  Wilkes. 
Halifax  would  have  read  with  less  trepidation  a  request  for  an 
interview  from  the  solicitor  of  his  largest  creditor  or  his  last 
mortgagee ;  and,  as  for  his  royal  master,  it  may  fairly  be  said 
that,  for  the  first  'and  only  time  in  his  existence,  George  the 
Third  was  thoroughly  frightened.  Thrice  in  the  course  of 
five  days  did  his  Majesty  sit  down  at  his  desk  for  the  purpose 
of  admonishing  Lord  North,  whatever  he  did,  to  leave  the 
most  awkward  of  customers  alone.  The  prime-minister — who 
had  such  painful  reasons  for  remembering  the  royal  letter  of 
April,  1768,  which  charged  him,  on  his  loyalty  as  a  subject,  to 
see  that  Parliament  reversed  the  Middlesex  election — must 
have  perused  with  a  respectful  smile  the  sentence  in  which 
his  sovereign,  in  March,  1771,  communicated  to  him  the  op- 
portune discovery  that  Wilkes  was  below  the  notice  of  the 
House  of  Commons. 

But  the  tardy  repentance  of  the  king  did  not  carry  him  far 
along  the  path  of  caution.  After  another  printer  had  been 
taken  into  custody  by  collusion,  in  order  to  be  set  at  liberty  with 
a  flourish  of  municipal  eloquence,  a  bona-fide  arrest  at  length 
was  made.  Miller,  the  publisher  of  the  London  Evening  Post, 
had  been  placed  by  Colonel  Onslow  on  the  list  of  proscription ; 
and  a  messenger  of  the  House  of  Commons,  calling  at  the 
shop,  was  unlucky  enough  to  find  his  man  at  home.     As  soon 


314  THE   EAELY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

as  a  finger  had  been  laid  upon  his  shoulder,  Miller  sent  for  a 
constable,  who  appeared  on  the  scene  with  significant  promp- 
titude, attended  by  a  posse  comitatus  of  the  neighbors.  The 
Speaker's  officer  was  given  into  charge  for  an  assault ;  and  as 
man}7  of  the  party  as  could  squeeze  themselves  into  a  hack- 
ney-coach started  together  for  Guildhall.  From  Guildhall 
they  were  sent  on  to  the  Mansion  House,  where  Lord  Mayor 
Crosby  was  awaiting  them,  with  Aldermen  Oliver  and  Wilkes 
as  his  assessors.  The  City  dignitaries,  who  had  no  intention  that 
the  thing  should  be  done  in  a  corner,  gave  time  for  the  news 
to  reach  Westminster;  and  the  deputy  sergeant-at-arms  came 
in  state  to  rescue  his  subordinate  and  to  claim  his  prisoner. 
The  lord  mayor  replied  by  asking  the  Speaker's  messenger 
whether  he  was  a  peace  officer  legally  qualified  to  make  an 
arrest  within  the  City  bounds,  and  whether  his  warrant  was 
backed  by  a  City  magistrate;  and  when  the  man  gave  the 
only  answer  in  his  power,  an  order  was  drawn  up  committing 
him  for  trial  on  the  charge  of  assault  and  false  imprisonment. 
Crosby,  whose  courage  was  his  best  quality,  though  his  char- 
acter was  otherwise  not  disrespectable,1  begged  his  colleagues 
to  leave  him  the  entire  responsibility  of  a  step  the  conse- 
quences of  which  could  not  fail  to  be  perilous;  and,  turning 
to  Wilkes,  he  said,  in  the  hearing  of  the  court,  "  You,  I  think, 
have  enough  on  your  hands  already."  But  Wilkes,  who  never 
cared  how  much  paper  was  flying  about  the  world  under  his 
signature,  insisted  on  putting  his  name  to  the  order  of  com- 
mitment ;  and  an  instrument  which  was  nothing  less  than  a 
declaration  of  war  against  the  House  of  Commons  went  forth 
under  the  unanimous  sanction  of  the  magistrates  who  were  in 
attendance  to  represent  the  City. 

The  leader  of  the  House,  if  left  to  himself,  would  have  al- 

1  Horace  Walpole,  who,  though  he  approved  the  cause,  took  his  cus- 
tomary pains  to  collect  all  the  dirt  which  political  hostility  had  raked  up 
against  the  man,  has  furnished  Crosby  with  the  reputation  of  a  low  fel- 
low who  had  risen  by  mean  arts.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  nothing 
worse  against  him  than  that  he  did  three  times  what  some  of  the  most 
eminent  patriots  in  history,  from  Washington  downwards,  have  done 
once — married  a  rich  widow. 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  315 

lowed  the  gage  of  battle  to  lie.  There  was  no  moment,  late 
or  early,  at  which  Lord  North  was  not  prepared  to  let  the 
matter  drop,  convinced,  as  he  had  been  all  along,  that  every 
fresh  stage  in  such  an  undertaking  could  only  be  more  shame- 
ful and  disastrous  than  the  last.  But  the  time  was  now  come 
for  him  to  experience  what  it  was  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  a 
stronger  will  and  a  weaker  judgment  than  his  own.  As  soon 
as  what  had  passed  in  the  City  was  known  in  the  palace,  the 
king  despatched  the  first  minister  who  entered  his  presence 
with  a  commission  to  tell  Lord  North  that,  unless  Crosby  and 
Oliver  were  sent  to  the  Tower,  nothing  could  save  the  Consti- 
tution ;  and  the  verbal  message  was  enforced  by  a  letter  couch- 
ed in  the  most  stringent  terms.  But  it  was  not  George  the 
Third's  custom,  on  an  occasion  which  in  his  eyes  wTas  a  crisis, 
to  rely  either  upon  spoken  or  written  words.  Like  all  men 
of  energy  who  are  forced  to  act  through  others,  he  thought 
less  of  giving  an  order  than  of  taking  his  own  measures  to 
have  that  order  obeyed.  The .  proceedings  at  the  Mansion 
House  had  not  been  concluded  until  late  on  the  Friday  even- 
ing ;  and  on  the  Monday,  as  soon  as  the  private  business  was 
over,  the  Speaker  rose  and,  standing  in  front  of  his  chair,  ex- 
pounded to  the  Commons,  in  a  long  and  circumstantial  narra- 
tive, the  nature  of  the  insult  which  had  been  offered  to  their 
authority.  His  story  met  with  a  cold  reception  from  a  Par- 
liament which,  having  hitherto  spent  the  whole  of  its  corpo- 
rate existence  in  fighting  the  people,  was  not  impatient  to  em- 
bark in  a  new  contest  that  seemed  likely  to  last  until  a  gen- 
eral election  reversed,  most  probably  forever,  the  position  of 
the  combatants.  After  a  fresh  series  of  county  meetings,  pe- 
titions, and  remonstrances  had  animated  the  nation  and  dis- 
heartened the  Court;  after  the  liberty  of  the  press  had  been 
drunk  with  three  times  three  in  every  assize  town  in  the  king- 
dom, and  another  score  of  letters  by  Junius,  on  the  most  fer- 
tile and  stirring  of  themes,  had  been  thumbed  to  pieces  in  all 
the  coffee-houses — to  go  then  to  the  country  on  the  question 
of  preventing  the  country  from  hearing  wThat  was  said  and 
knowing  what  was  done  by  the  representatives  of  the  coun- 
try would  be  to  provide  Chatham  with  a  devoted  and  irresist- 


316  THE   EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

ible  majority,  to  be  used  at  will  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 
purpose  which  he  had  nearest  at  heart.  And  what  that  pur- 
pose was,  no  one  who  had  an  insight  into  his  mind,  or  a  hint 
of  the  subject  on  which  he  most  frequently  and  earnestly  cor- 
responded with  the  statesmen  who  enjoyed  and  deserved  his 
confidence,  could  for  a  moment  doubt.  With  Chatham  once 
more  dictator,  and  Shelburne  or  Barre  his  master  of  the 
knights,  the  very  first  session  would  usher  in  an  era  of  such 
searching  and  sweeping  economical  and  parliamentary  reform 
that  few  indeed  of  those  gentlemen  whose  seats  were  now  so 
secure  and  so  remunerative  would  ever  handle  a  Treasury 
bank-bill  or  see  the  inside  of  St.  Stephen's  again. 

When  the  Speaker  had  concluded  his  doleful  and  undigni- 
fied tale,  the  House  looked  in  vain  for  guidance  from  the 
usual  quarters  to  which,  in  a  case  of  perplexity,  it  was  accus- 
tomed to  turn.  No  leading  minister — no  private  member 
qualified  by  his  standing  and  his  character  to  be  put  forward 
as  an  interpreter  of  the  government  policy — would  consent 
to  play  the  part  of  adviser  at  a  conjuncture  when  the  single 
piece  of  advice  that  was  not  utter  folly  was  such  as  a  king's 
minister  dared  not  give.  Only  Welbore  Ellis,  whose  name 
was  a  proverb  for  a  hack  placeman  throughout  the  half-cen- 
tury when  hack  placemen  went  for  the  most  in  English  his- 
tory— who  had  done  parliamentary  job-work  for  Henry  Pel- 
ham,  and  who  lived  to  be  a  mark  for  the  boyish  shafts  of 
William  Pitt — moved,  with  the  air  of  one  who,  having  learn- 
ed his  lesson,  was  half  afraid  to  say  it,  "  that  Brass  Crosby, 
Esquire,  Lord  Mayor  of  the  City  of  London,  a  member  of  this 
House,  do  attend  this  House  in  his  place  to-morrow  morning." 
Very  different  men,  speaking  in  far  less  uncertain  accents, 
rose  in  rapid  succession  to  combat  the  insane  proposal.  The 
assault  was  led  by  Sir  William  Meredith,  a  convert  from  Jac- 
obite opinions,  who  had  not  abandoned  his  ancient  faith  in 
order  at  once  to  worship  the  rising  sun  of  a  new-fangled  ab- 
solutism. Ever  since  the  time  that  Wilkes  had  first  engaged 
the  attention  of  Parliament,  Sir  William  had  borne  his  part 
in  defence  of  constitutional  liberty  with  a  scrupulous  fairness 
and  an  almost  pathetic  candor  which  won  the  good-will  of  his 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  317 

opponents,  and  were  not  always  to  the  taste  of  the  more  im- 
petuous of  his  allies.  His  influence  in  the  House  was  rather 
increased  than  lessened  by  his  not  aspiring  to  speak  better 
than  became  a  country  gentleman ;  but  the  occasion  now  was 
such  that  to  be  an  honest  man  was  almost  equivalent  to  being 
an  orator.  Like  a  good  cavalier,  Sir  William  read  a  passage 
from  his  Clarendon  to  illustrate  the  dangers  of  exalting  the 
privilege  of  Parliament  as  against  the  law  of  the  realm ; 
but,  without  the  help  of  quotation,  his  own  downright  lan- 
guage admirably  expressed  the  energy  of  his  honorable  and 
manly  apprehensions.  "  I  wish  to  God,"  cried  the  old  Tory, 
"that  those  who  are  involved  in  the  labyrinths  of  this  fatal 
proposition  had  consulted  their  judgments  and  then  made  a 
pause !  I  desire  to  make  my  pause  now.  I  came  down  to  the 
House  this  day  with  a  strong  impression  that  I  could  take  but 
one  part,  which  was,  if  human  wisdom  could  point  out  the 
means,  to  put  a  stop  to  this  business.  By  whom  this  business 
was  brought  into  the  House  I  know.  By  whose  dexterity  it 
is  to  be  got  out  of  it  I  do  not  yet  know.  But  this  I  know, 
that,  unless  you  do  get  rid  of  it,  I  see  nothing  but  mischief 
before  you." 

Meredith  was  followed  by  Henry  Herbert,  afterwards  Lord 
Portch ester,  and  long  afterwards  the  Earl  of  Carnarvon.  A 
young  politician,  as  politicians  go  now — though  in  a  House  of 
Commons  which  contained  Charles  Fox,  thirty  could  hardly 
be  regarded  as  within  the  age  of  modesty — he  had  before  this 
been  selected  by  his  party  to  initiate  debates  for  which  Burke 
and  Dowdeswell  and  Dunning  undertook  to  provide  the  elo- 
quence, while  Herbert  himself  contributed  little  beyond  the 
influence  of  his  high  position  and  blameless  reputation.  But 
now,  instead  of  repeating  his  wonted  string  of  unimpeachable 
Whig  sentiments  arrayed  in  staid  Whig  phrases,  he  astonished 
his  hearers  and  himself  by  speaking  his  mind  in  words  as 
plain  and  free  as  those  in  which  his  sailor  namesake  told 
James  the  Second,  to  his  face,  that  there  was  a  point  beyond 
which  even  the  loyalty  of  a  Herbert  would  not  carry  him. 
Seconding  Meredith's  proposal  that  the  House  should  adjourn 
till  it  had  leisure  to  survey  the  precipice  on  the  verge  of 


318  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

which  it  stood,  the  young  patrician  adjured  his  fellows  not  to 
be  hurried  into  a  course  that  was  detrimental  to  the  true  in- 
terests of  their  order.  "I  shall  be  told,"  he  said,  "that  our 
dignity  is  so  nearly  concerned  that  we  cannot  pause  for  a  mo- 
ment. Is  it  for  our  dignity  to  be  eternally  at  war  with  the 
people  ?"  Lord  John  Cavendish,  who  stood  on  a  level  with 
Herbert  in  the  esteem  of  Parliament,  and  was  much  more  at 
home  in  an  atmosphere  which  to  a  Cavendish  was  native  air, 
sketched  with  a  practised  hand  a  vivid  picture  of  the  dangers 
and  humiliations  in  which  the  House  of  Commons  was  asked 
to  involve  itself.  Nobody  appeared  on  the  other  side  but  a 
few  third-rate  speakers,  who  endeavored  to  withdraw  attention 
from  the  poverty  of  their  arguments  by  taunting  the  Opposi- 
tion into  a  quarrel  over  the  very  driest  among  the  innumera- 
ble bones  of  contention  that  remained  on  the  battle-field  of 
the  Middlesex  election.  At  the  first  symptom  of  a  riot, 
Charles  Fox  rushed  joyously  into  the  fray ; 1  but  his  attempt 
to  create  a  diversion  was  sternly  repressed  by  Savile.  Reduced 
to  argue  their  cause  on  its  demerits,  the  supporters  of  the  mo- 
tion spoke  briefly,  coldly,  and  most  ineffectively.  The  heart 
appeared  to  be  out  of  the  business ;  and  the  prime-minister,  as 
he  watched  the  glum  faces  that  surrounded  him,  began  to  feel 
the  inward  joy  of  a  trainer  who  has  sold  a  cock-fight  when 
his  bird  will  not  come  to  time.  It  seemed  impossible  that  the 
king,  brave  and  pertinacious  as  he  was,  should  insist  upon  the 
cabinet  asserting  a  privilege  of  the  House  of  Commons  which 
the  House  of  Commons  itself  was  desirous  to  renounce. 

But  Lord  North  did  not  yet  know  the  master  whom  he 
served.  Because  the  statesman  who  was  in  official  possession 
of  the  royal  confidence  stood  aghast  before  the  enterprise 
which  he  was  commanded  to  undertake ;  because  the  great 
body  of  Tory  county  members,  who  hitherto  had  done  their 

1  "  I  beg  to  lay  in  my  claim,"  said  Fox,  "  that  I  should  not  be  called  to 
order.  I  wish  to  know  whether  it  is  disorderly  to  say  that  persons  have 
presented  to  the  Crown  insolent  and  impertinent  petitions."  Such  was  a 
fair  specimen  of  the  interpellations  by  which  the  young  senator  tempered 
for  himself  the  otherwise  intolerable  tyranny  which  forbade  him  to  speak 
more  than  once  in  every  debate. 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  319 

sovereign's  bidding  through  evil  report  and  good  report,  now 
hung  back  from  a  conflict  which,  though  their  ostensible  foes 
were  the  City  and  the  newspapers,  was  in  truth  waged  against 
their  own  constituents — it  by  no  means  followed  that  George 
the  Third  was  at  the  end  of  his  resources.  The  time  had  come 
for  him  to  remind  his  minister  and  his  minister's  supporters 
that  lie  had  in  pay  a  praetorian  guard  of  his  own,  led  by  a 
captain  whom  nature  had  framed  for  more  honorable  employ- 
ment. Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  the  progenitor  of  a  race  which  has 
inherited  his  powers  and  applied  them  to  worthier  ends,  had 
been  enrolled  among  the  king's  friends  ever  since  the  king 
had  begun  to  make  a  party;  and  that  he  was  incomparably 
the  ablest  of  the  band,  if  any  one  had  doubted  it,  he  was  now 
to  prove.  At  the  turn  of  the  debate,  when  another  half-hour's 
hesitation  would  have  set  the  tide  racing  towards  a  policy  of 
caution,  Elliot  stepped  on  the  floor  with  a  promise  of  saying 
nothing  that  should  inflame  the  House,  and  then  proceeded  to 
pour  forth  a  declamation  which  had  fire  enough  about  it  to  set 
a  Quakers'  meeting  in  a  blaze.  He  was  there,  he  said,  under 
no  control  from  king  or  minister.  It  was  the  House  of  Com- 
mons that  he  meant  to  stand  by — that  House  which  was  not 
an  instrument  to  destroy,  but  to  maintain,  the  rights  and  priv- 
ileges of  the  people.  The  authority  of  Parliament,  so  he  re- 
minded his  colleagues,  had  been  denied.  The  sword  had  been 
drawn,  but  not  by  them.  Civil  war  had  been  as  good  as  pro- 
claimed;  and  the  people  who  were  so  hot  for  it  must  be 
taught  that  they  were  not  the  strongest.  "If  they  come 
against  us,"  he  said,  "  with  all  their  City  behind  them,  I  will 
not  be  the  man  to  fall  back.  Are  we,  the  Commons  of  Eng- 
land, the  representatives  of  the  people,  afraid  to  defend  the 
law  and  custom  of  Parliament  against  the  Lord  Mayor  of  Lon- 
don and  two  of  the  aldermen  ?  I  never  will  cease  to  exhort 
every  gentleman  who  hears  me — every  man  of  family  or  es- 
tate or  talent  in  this  House — to  defend  its  rights,  and  not  to 
defer  that  defence  by  consenting  to  an  adjournment." 

By  the  time  that  Elliot  had  done,  the  mischief  was  already 
irrevocable.  There  was  no  mistaking  the  significance  of  his 
tone,  which  was  not  so  much  that  of  the  senator  seeking  to 


320  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

persuade  his  colleagues  as  of  the  aide-de-camp  who  has 
brought  to  an  unwilling  colonel  the  order  to  charge,  and  who 
speaks  loud  enough  for  the  regiment  to  hear.  His  attitude 
was  understood,  and  was  intended  to  be  understood,  by  the 
pensioners,  who  looked  to  the  Court  for  their  bread-and-but- 
ter ;  by  the  lawyers,  who  within  the  last  two  months  had  seen 
the  attorney-generalship  given  as  a  reward  to  one  of  their 
number  for  making  an  impudent  attack  upon  the  first  princi- 
ples of  liberty,  and  the  solicitor-generalship  to  another  as  a 
fee  for  ceasing  to  defend  them;  by  the  West  Indians,  who, 
with  more  slaves  than  constituents,  cared  nothing  for  running 
counter  to  a  popular  feeling  with  which  they  were  not  trained 
to  sympathize,  and  from  which  as  politicians  they  had  nothing 
to  fear ;  by  the  East  Indians,  who,  ambitious  of  the  social  po- 
sition which  mere  wealth,  and,  least  of  all,  wealth  with  such 
an  origin  as  theirs,  could  not  buy,  were  enchanted  at  being 
addressed  as  men  of  family  and  estate,  and  having  their  course 
pointed  out  by  one  whose  own  fortunes  gave  such  solid  proof 
that  he  knew  every  turn  of  the  avenues  which  led  to  worldly 
honor.  All  the  tribe,  without  whose  suffrages  no  government 
could  then  exist,  enforced  each  of  Elliot's  periods  with  cheer- 
ing which  told  the  prime-minister  that  it  was  no  longer  within 
his  discretion  to  stay  his  hand.  Burke  replied  in  a  speech  full 
of  political  wisdom,  of  literary  beauty,  of  allusions  to  his  own 
history  and  his  own  personality — allusions  from  which  the  run 
of  speakers  do  well  to  refrain,  but  which  in  the  mouth  of  the 
very  few  who  can  venture  to  employ  them  are  among  the 
most  exquisite  graces  of  oratory.  The  prompt  wit  and  digni- 
fied humility  with  which  he  accepted  a  very  unnecessary  call 
to  order  from  Colonel  Luttrell  afford  a  model  of  the  temper 
in  which  a  great  statesman  should  deal  with  an  interruption. 
"  The  question  of  Middlesex,"  interposed  Luttrell,  "  is  not  be- 
fore us.  I  cannot'  sit  and  hear  the  seat  which  I  honor  myself 
on  holding  called  in  question."  "  The  honorable  gentleman," 
said  Burke,  "  has  reason  to  honor  himself.  He  is  a  greater 
man  than  I  am.  He  was  elected  in  a  much  more  honorable 
manner,  by  greater  constituents."  But  Burke,  though  he  spoke 
so  as  to  carry  delight  and  persuasion  to  every  one  who  was 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  321 

not  a  placeman  or  a  partisan,  showed  nothing  of  the  aggres- 
sive and  almost  elated  air  which  had  been  remarkable  in  the 
members  of  the  Opposition  who  had  preceded  Elliot ;  and  his 
subdued  manner  was  exhilaration  itself  as  compared  with  the 
despondency  of  the  prime-minister.  Never  were  followers 
more  clearly  forewarned  that  the  enterprise  to  which  they 
were  summoned  was  a  forlorn-hope,  and  that,  whatever  might 
be  the  case  with  the  rank  and  file,  their  leader  did  not  pretend 
to  be  a  volunteer.  In  the  three  sentences  which  conveyed  the 
announcement  that  the  cabinet  had  resolved  to  push  the  quar- 
rel, the  word  "  unhappy  "  occurred  no  less  than  three  times ; 
and  the  sentiment  was  so  deeply  imprinted  on  Lord  North's 
countenance,  and  so  evident  in  his  demeanor,  as  to  convince 
the  fighting-men  of  his  party  that  peace  might  be  made  at  any 
moment,  unless  the  government,  through  the  mouth  of  one 
among  its  own  members,  was  committed  beyond  recall  to  a 
policy  of  defiance.  It  was  a  rare  chance  for  any  minister, 
small  or  great,  who  was  ambitious  to  display  himself  in  the 
character  of  a  mutineer  and  an  incendiary.  The  opportunity 
was  come  for  which  a  mother's  pride  had  long  been  waiting. 
"  I  hope,"  wrote  Lady  Holland,  in  January,  1770,  "  that  Lord 
North  has  courage  and  resolution.  Charles  being  connected 
with  him  pleases  me  mightily.  I  have  formed  a  very  high 
opinion  of  his  lordship,  and  my  Charles  will,  I  dare  say,  in- 
spire him  with  courage."  And  with  the  sort  of  courage  which 
animates  a  general  in  the  presence  of  an  enemy  when  he  is 
informed  that  a  sub-lieutenant  of  engineers  has  taken  upon 
himself  to  break  up  the  bridges  in  his  rear,  North  was  now  to 
be  provided  in  abundance. 

The  lord  mayor,  who  sat  for  Honiton,  was  well  liked  among 
his  brother-members.  Even  Colonel  Onslow  thought  it  a  duty 
to  bear  testimony  in  his  favor,  and  solemnly  took  his  Maker 
to  witness  that  he  never  should  have  expected  such  conduct 
from  a  gentleman  with  whom  he  had  frequently  drunk  a  bot- 
tle. Barre  skilfully  attempted  to  avail  himself  of  Crosby's 
popularity  in  order  to  obtain  him  a  reprieve  on  the  ground 
that  he  was  out  of  health — a  plea  with  regard  to  which  the 
House,  it  must  be  allowed,  showed  itself  sufficiently  sceptical. 

21 


322  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

Fox,  who  knew  that  the  lord  major  was  in  all  probability  suf- 
fering from  nothing  more  serious  than  wTas  the  matter  with 
half  the  cabinet  on  the  morning  after  they  had  dined  with 
anybody  except  a  bishop,  began  an  energetic  and  most  artful 
harangue  by  declaring  that  Parliament  had  no  concern  with 
questions  of  health  or  sickness.  It  was  for  the  House  to  de- 
cree whether  the  lord  mayor  should  be  cited  before  it  to  an- 
swer for  his  proceedings ;  and  then,  if  he  was  too  ill  to  come, 
he  must  himself  write  and  say  so.  Parliament  (Fox  went  on 
to  assert)  would  do  well  not  to  lend  too  credulous  an  ear  to 
those  who  threatened  it  with  the  displeasure  of  the  people  of 
England.  The  people,  in  the  language  of  certain  gentlemen, 
was  only  another  name  for  whatever  class  or  group  or  hand- 
ful of  men  might  happen  at  the  moment  to  be  in  rebellion 
against  the  people's  representatives.  One  year  the  freehold- 
ers of  Middlesex  were  the  people  of  England  ;  next  year  the 
citizens  of  London ;  and  now  the  meaning  of  a  term  which 
ought  to  embrace  the  nation  had  been  narrowed  down  until 
it  had  come  to  stand  for  the  lord  mayor  and  a  couple  of  al- 
dermen. The  people  (argued  the  young  casuist)  were  correct 
in  thinking  that  they  had  a  stake  in  the  contest ;  but  their 
interest  lay  upon  the  opposite  side  from  that  on  which  they 
were  invited  to  range  themselves.  The  controversy  which  had 
been  so  impertinently  and  so  needlessly  provoked  was  not  be- 
tween the  House  of  Commons  and  the  people,  but  between 
the  people  and  the  Crown.  The  lord  mayor  rested  his  case 
upon  the  rights  of  the  City ;  the  charter  which  conferred 
those  rights  had  emanated  from  the  sovereign ;  and  the  point 
of  the  dispute,  therefore,  was  whether  the  king  could,  of  his 
own  will  and  pleasure,  invest  a  corporation  with  the  power  to 
treat  as  non-existent  an  established  privilege  of  the  English 
House  of  Commons.  "  That  privilege,"  he  cried,  breaking  into 
a  peroration  before  his  hearers  had  leisure  to  examine  too 
closely  this  most  unforeseen  product  of  his  sinister  dexterity, 
"  is  recognized  by  the  people  of  England,  and  disputed  only 
by  three  of  the  City  magistrates.  Every  gentleman  who  thinks 
the  honor  of  this  House  insulted  and  its  existence  at  stake 
will  be  for  the  lord  mayor's  coming  here  to-morrow.     There 


1770-71.]  CHAKLES  JAMES  FOX.  323 

may  be,  as  in  all  ages  there  has  been,  discontent  among  a  por- 
tion of  the  people;  but  while  we  act  agreeably  to  law  we  are 
invulnerable.  I  am  sick  of  our  lenient  mode  of  dealing  with 
our  enemies.  There  has  long  been  a  determination  on  the 
part  of  certain  persons^to  bring  the  question  of  our  privileges 
to  an  issue;  and  even  if  we  had  let  the  printers  alone,  we 
should  have  had  that  question  forced  upon  us  within  another 
month,  or,  at  latest,  within  another  session.  It  is  from  those 
who  in  their  souls  abhor  and  detest  our  admirable  Constitution 
that  this  plot  has  sprung." 

The  speech,  which  may  still  be  read  pretty  nearly  as  it  was 
spoken,  explains  the  dislike  and  dread  wTith  which  the  speaker 
was  then  regarded  by  a  multitude  of  politicians,  humble  in 
rank  and  zealous  for  their  opinions,  who  ten  years  afterwards 
centred  on  him  all  their  hopes,  and  twenty  years  afterwards 
would  have  died  for  him  to  a  man.  People  of  his  own  class 
— who  knew  what  a  good-hearted  fellow  he  was,  and  how  lit- 
tle he  owed  to  his  bringing-up  (if,  indeed,  he  could  be  said  to 
have  been  brought  up  at  all) — forgave  him  much ;  and  those 
among  them  who  had  an  insight  into  character  looked  for- 
ward confidently  to  the  day  wThen  the  true  metal  that  was  in 
him  would 

"  Show  more  goodly,  and  attract  more  eyes, 
Thau  that  which  hath  no  foil  to  set  it  off." 

But  the  great  body  of  tradesmen  and  small  freeholders,  who 
were  beginning  to  recognize  the  abuses  of  the  system  under 
which  they  lived,  and  to  talk  eagerly  and  seriously  of  those 
reforms  which  between  their  time  and  ours  have  made  Eng- 
land another  and  a  better  country,  might  be  excused  for  re- 
garding Charles  Fox  as  a  young  Hannibal,  whom  his  sire  had 
pledged  from  the  nursery  to  the  destruction  of  freedom  ;  with 
a  forehead  of  brass  and  a  constitution  of  iron  ;  whom  the  nine- 
teenth century  would  find  still  thundering  with  matured  abil- 
ity and  undiminished  vigor  against  the  claims  of  reason,  jus- 
tice, and  humanity.  The  impression  produced  by  his  youth- 
ful rhetoric  on  those  against  whose  interests  and  convictions 
it  was  directed  is  recorded  by  a  poor  bookseller  who  had  suf- 
fered many  things  of  many  secretaries  of  state,  and  who  was 


324:  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

constant  in  his  attendance  at  the  House  of  Commons  on  the 
frequent  occasions  when  matters  affecting  his  craft  were  un- 
der discussion.  John  Almon,  of  Piccadilly,  who  published 
for  Wilkes  and  other  members  of  the  extreme  section  of  the 
Opposition,  thus  describes  the  Fox  of  1771:  "He  answered 
no  arguments  sensibly ;  but  he  showed  some  ingenuity  in  en- 
deavoring to  confound  the  reasoning  of  his  opponents.  Cun- 
ning, much  life,  more  profligacy,  some  wit,  and  little  sense  is 
no  unfair  account  of  his  performance.  But  he  trusted  to 
numbers,  which  beat  all  understanding."  To  be  in  the 
wrong  and  side  with  the  strong  on  questions  of  civil  liberty 
was  the  easy  and  agreeable  apprenticeship  of  one  whose  high- 
est title  to  honor  is  that  on  those  same  questions,  from  the  first 
year  of  his  discretion  to  the  last  of  his  life,  he  was  almost  al- 
ways in  the  right  and  hardly  ever  in  a  majority.  But  so 
long  as  he  was  false  to  his  future,  fortune  was  true  to  him. 
The  ardor  with  which  the  Whigs  commenced  the  debate  of 
the  eighteenth  of  March  had  been  damped  by  Elliot,  and  was 
fairly  extinguished  by  Fox.  The  discussion,  killed  by  his  ve- 
hemence, dwindled  into  a  desultory  conversation,  succeeded 
by  a  division  in  which  the  Court,  by  two  hundred  and  sixty- 
seven  votes  to  eight}7,  carried  the  day  against  the  efforts  of 
its  opponents  and  the  wishes  of  its  ministers. 

The  king  received  intelligence  of  the  victory  in  a  spirit  in- 
dicating that  the  calamities  which  since  the  year  1763  had  be- 
fallen his  realm  had  taught  him  as  little  about  the  nature  of 
the  people  whom  he  governed  as  he  had  learned  from  history 
before  he  began  to  have  experiences  of  his  own. 

"  Though  some  o'  the  court  hold  it  presumptiou 
To  instruct  princes  what  they  ought  to  do, 
It  is  a  noble  duty  to  inform  them 
What  they  ought  to  foresee." 

But  the  duty  inculcated  in  those  rugged  lines  was  ill^er- 
formed  in  the  circle  which  more  immediately  surrounded 
George  the  Third.  So  masterful  that  he  did  not  love  to  as- 
sociate with  people  of  forcible  and  independent  minds  as  his 
daily  companions,  he  was  so  kind  that  the  honest  folks  about 
him  were  all  but  sure  to  be  sincere  and  passionate  admirers  of 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  325 

any  course  which  he  might  pursue;  and,  even  when  they 
thought  him  mistaken,  they  could  not  bear  to  cross  him. 
With  no  one  to  offer  advice  which  was  not  the  echo  of  his 
own  purposes,  he  again  forgot,  as  lie  had  forgotten  so  lately 
and  so  frequently,  that  the  enthusiasm  of  the  English  for  the 
victim  of  a  state  prosecution  was  as  certain  as  a  fact  in  phys- 
ics. The  citizens  of  London,  whose  grandfathers  had  made  a 
saint  and  a  martyr  of  the  most  foolish  clergyman  that  ever 
turned  the  pulpit  into  a  rostrum — and  who  themselves  had 
made  a  hero  and  a  martyr,  and,  what  was  more,  an  alderman, 
of  as  dissolute  a  politician  as  ever  looked  to  Parliament  as  a 
sanctuary  from  the  bailiffs — would  now  (so  George  the  Third 
had  brought  himself  to  believe)  acquiesce  in  seeing  their  own 
chief  magistrate  tried,  convicted,  and  punished  for  the  crime 
of  defending  their  own  privileges,  if  only  care  was  taken  not 
to  thrust  the  transaction  too  prominently  before  their  notice. 
Writing  as  if  it  were  a  question  of  saving  an  informer  from 
being  hooted  on  his  way  to  the  witness-box,  or  balking  a 
popular  highwayman  of  his  ovation  in  the  cart,  the  king  im- 
agined that  he  had  taken  adequate  precautions  against  a  rep- 
etition of  the  scenes  which  had  so  often  disgraced  and  dis- 
turbed his  capital,  when  he  recommended  the  prime-minister 
to  conduct  the  lord  mayor  to  Westminster  by  water  "  in  the 
most  private  manner."  With  a  little  ordinary  caution,  and 
resolution  something  more  than  ordinary,  on  the  part  of 
North,  the  affair,  according  to  his  Majesty's  forecast,  would 
be  "  happily  concluded ;"  the  Liverymen,  when  they  were  tired 
of  waiting  on  Ludgate  Hill  for  a  procession  which  never  came, 
would  go  back  to  their  work  and  leave  the  lord  mayor  to  his 
reflections  in  the  Tower;  the  newspapers  would  be  silenced, 
the  printers  ruined,  and  the  House  of  Commons  as  impervi- 
ously sealed  to  the  public  gaze  as  the  Council  of  Ten  at 
Venice. 

But  the  English  of  that  day  were  not  so  different  from  the 
people  who  defeated  Walpole's  Excise  scheme  that  they  would 
be  content  to  pay  taxes  the  necessity  for  which  had  not  been 
explained  to  them,  and  to  obey  laws  the  process  of  making 
which  they  had  been  forbidden  to  inspect.     Nor  did  Crosby 


326  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

and  Oliver  approve  the  notion  of  being  smuggled  about  Lon- 
don in  a  fashion  derogatory  to  its  municipal  ruler  and  its  par- 
liamentary representative.  As  they  drove  westwards  together 
on  their  way  to  St.  Stephen's,  their  coach  passed  between  deep 
and  serried  ranks  of  citizens,  well  behaved,  well  dressed,  and 
in  a  large  proportion  well  educated,  as  might  be  judged  from 
the  character  of  the  ejaculations  that  mingled  with  the  huzzas 
which  ran  in  one  unbroken  volume  along  street,  hall,  staircase, 
and  lobby,  from  the  steps  of  the  Mansion  House  to  the  thresh- 
old of  the  Commons.1  For  three  minutes  after  the  door  of 
the  House  had  closed  behind  the  lord  mayor,  the  cheering 
from  without  continued  to  resound  through  the  chamber,  and 
brought  the  trial  of  the  seven  bishops  to  the  memory  of  those 
who  sat  within,  however  little  most  of  them  might  relish  the 
parallel.  But  though  the  associations  which  the  scene  aroused 
reminded  the  members  then  present  that  they  were  assembled 
in  the  capacity  of  a  court  of  justice,  very  few  of  them  showed 
any  sense  of  the  obligation  to  adapt  their  temper  and  their 
manners  to  the  judicial  standard.  During  the  three  days 
which  were  consumed  over  the  preliminaries  of  the  case,  the 
supporters  of  the  government  made  no  pretence  of  imparti- 
ality, and  little  enough  of  common  propriety.  They  groaned 
down  the  first  member  who  opened  his  lips  on  behalf  of  the 
City ;  and  when  Dowdeswell  interposed  a  few  words  before 
the  House  came  to  its  final  decision,  he  was  received  in  a  fash- 
ion which  proved  that  even  an  ex-Chancellor  of  the  Excheq- 
uer must  expect  to  be  roughly  handled  if  he  attempted  to  en- 
lighten the  minds  of  those  numerous  honorable  gentlemen 
who  were  going  to  pronounce  on  a  knotty  point  of  legal  pro- 
cedure without  having  listened  to  the  argument.  What  sort 
of  trial  was  this  (asked  Burke),  to  which  jurymen  flocked  in, 
wiping  their  mouths,  and  bawling  "  Question  I"  and  "  Divide !" 
when  one  of  their  number,  who  had  remained  in  his  place, 
undertook,  before  they  delivered  their  verdict,  to  put  them  in 


1 "  The  crowd,"  said  a  writer  in  the  Gentleman 's  Magazine,  "  during  the 
whole  passage  to  the  House  called  out  to  the  lord  mayor  as  '  The  people's 
friend,'  'The  guardian  of  the  city's  rights  and  the  nation's  liberties.'" 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES,  FOX.  327 

possession  of  the  evidence  which  had  been  adduced  while  they 
were  absent  at  their  dinners  ?  Fox,  completely  in  his  element, 
enjoyed  himself  like  an  apprentice  in  an  O.  P.  riot,  and  bore 
off  the  honors  of  the  most  scandalous  among  the  many  tumults 
which  interrupted  and  inflamed  the  proceedings.  Barre,  who 
took  him  to  task  for  calling  his  colleagues  assassins,  and  for 
speaking  of  men  whose  guilt  was  still  unproved  as  criminals, 
paid  him  as  high  a  compliment  as  ever  took  the  shape  of  a  re- 
proof by  admonishing  him  that  a  member  with  his  great  abil- 
ities and  acknowledged  position  as  a  leader  might  not  plead 
inexperience  even  at  one-and-twenty. 

What  was  done  during  those  evenings  was  at  least  as  want- 
ing in  decorum  as  what  was  said  or  shouted.  The  Speaker 
refused  to  read  the  letter  in  which  Wilkes,  who  had  been  sum- 
moned to  attend  at  the  bar,  respectfully  declined  to  appear 
elsewhere  than  in  his  place  on  the  benches.  The  House  re- 
fused to  hear  counsel  on  the  question  whether  the  lord  mayor 
could  have  acted  upon  a  warrant  which  was  not  signed  by  a 
City  magistrate  without  infringing  the  charters  which,  at  his 
accession  to  office,  he  had  sworn  to  observe — a  course  as  high- 
handed as  if,  in  an  action  of  trespass,  the  defendant  were  de- 
barred from  attempting  to  show  that  the  land  off  which  he 
had  been  warned  was  his  own.  And  at  length,  mounting 
from  informality  to  outrage,  the  ministerial  majority  ordered 
the  clerk  of  the  lord  mayor  to  place  upon  their  table  the  book 
containing  the  recognizance  by  which  the  Speaker's  messenger 
was  bound  over  to  appear  at  Guildhall,  and  proceeded  then 
and  there  to  expunge  the  entry.  On  the  very  spot  where  the 
great  men  of  the  seventeenth  century,  in  the  presence  of  a 
frowning  king,  maintained  that  privilege  of  Parliament  which 
was  now  perverted  into  a  weapon  for  the  discomfiture  of  lib- 
erty, their  descendants  were  not  ashamed  to  combine  in  a  vio- 
lation of  the  law  which  a  tyrant  who  had  not  three  hundred 
others  to  keep  him  in  countenance  would  never  have  dared 
to  perpetrate.1     ISor  would  even  that  shameless  throng  have 

1  Chatham,  in  his  review  of  the  session,  thus  commented  on  the  bad 
business  :  "  These  men,  who  had  allowed  the  prostitute  electors  of  Shore- 


328  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

carried  their  audacity  to  such  a  length  if  there  had  been  no 
defection  from  the  small  band  who  hitherto  had  remained 
true  to  the  Constitution  and  to  each  other.  But  the  most 
flagrant  act  of  treachery  which  stands  against  the  name  of 
any  public  man  eminent  enough  to  have  the  incidents  of  his 
career  recorded  for  the  criticism  of  posterity  had,  for  the 
time  being,  placed  liberty  and  legality  at  the  mercy  of  their 
adversaries. 

No  one  conversant  with  the  political  literature  of  the  mid- 
dle of  the  eighteenth  century  would  deny  that  the  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons  who,  as  a  class,  then  enjoyed  the 
affection  and  confidence  of  their  colleagues  in  the  least  ample 
measure  were  the  lawyers.  Something  of  their  unpopular- 
ity may  be  traced  to  a  social  prejudice  against  men  who  had 
worked  their  way  from  an  humbler  level  into  a  sphere  which, 
but  for  their  intrusion,  the  aristocracy  would  have  preserved 
almost  exclusively  to  itself;  but  the  small  esteem  in  which 
gentlemen  of  the  long  robe  were  very  generally  held  was 
chiefly  due  to  what  Bubb  Dodington  and  Henry  Fox  would 
have  termed  moral  causes.  Everybody  (such  would  be  the 
theory  of  those  profound  observers)  was  greedy;  but  the  law- 
yer was  selfish.  Everybody  was  ready  to  change  sides  with  the 
rest  of  the  connection  to  which  he  belonged ;  but  the  lawyer 
•ratted  alone,  and  ut  the  moment  which  suited  his  individual 
interests.  The  Bedfords  hunted  in  a  pack ;  the  Pelhams  ran 
in  a  couple ;  but  the  lawyer  pursued  his  peculiar  prey  with 
solitary  avidity,  and  with  a  clamor  which  went  far  to  spoil  the 


ham  counsel  to  defend  a  bargain  to  sell  their  borough  by  auction,  would 
not  grant  the  same  indulgence  to  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London  pleading 
for  the  laws  of  England  and  the  conscientious  discharge  of  his  duty." 
The  erasure  of  the  recognizance,  he  went  on  to  say,  was  the  act  of  a  mob, 
and  not  of  a  parliament.  "  We  have  heard  of  such  violences  committed 
by  the  French  king ;  and  it  seems  better  calculated  for  the  latitude  of 
Paris  than  of  London.  The  people  of  this  kingdom  will  never  submit 
to  such  barefaced  tyranny.  They  must  see  that  it  is  time  to  rouse  when 
their  own  creatures  assume  a  power  of  stopping  prosecutions  by  their 
vote,  and  consequently  of  resolving  the  law  of  the  land  into  their  will 
and  pleasure." 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  329 

sport  of  the  entire  field.  It  was  hard  enough  that  a  barris- 
ter with  a  seat  which  he  had  bought  cheap  from  some  patron 
of  a  borough  who  had  overstayed  his  market  should  talk  of 
himself  as  ill-used  if  he  did  not  secure  a  recordership  in  the 
course  of  his  second  session,  and  a  judgeship  before  the  end 
of  his  second  Parliament ;  while  a  squire  who  had  fought  his 
county  at  every  general  election  since  he  came  of  age  was  bid- 
den by  the  ministers  to  think  himself  lucky,  and  by  Junius 
to  consider  himself  infamous,  if  in  the  fulness  of  time  his 
fidelity  was  rewarded  by  a  place  which  hardly  paid  the  rent  of 
his  town  house  and  the  wages  of  his  chairmen.  But  it  was 
positively  insufferable  that  a  quiet  supporter  of  the  govern- 
ment who,  after  much  study  and  many  misgivings,  had  screwed 
himself  up  to  the  determination  of  showing  his  leaders  that 
he  could  speak  as  well  as  vote  should  find  himself  forestalled 
at  every  stage  of  the  debate  by  the  fluency  of  men  whose 
trade,  as  Chatham  told  them,  was  words.  Whenever  any- 
thing was  to  be  said,  there  never  was  wanting  an  honorable 
and  learned  gentleman  to  say  it,  at  five  times  the  length  of 
anybody  else,  and  with  the  air  of  authority  betokening  a  pro- 
fession which  earns  its  bread  by  affecting  to  be  infallible. 
But  the  county  members  knew  well  how  to  take  their  revenge. 
Their  ears  were  at  the  command  of  anybody  on  whom  the 
Speaker's  glance  might  light ;  but  their  minds  were  open  to 
the  advice  of  those,  and  those  only,  who  resembled  them- 
selves in  position,  in  antecedents,  in  habits  of  thought,  and  in 
the  proportion  which  the  number  of  their  sentences  bore  to 
the  weight  of  their  arguments.  Ten  words  from  Conway  or 
Savile  went  further  than  an  hour  of  Sergeant  Nares  or  Dr. 
Hay;  and  there  was  nothing  more  sure  to  take  with  the 
House  of  Commons  than  an  allusion  to  the  difference  in  qual- 
ity of  the  attention  which  it  paid  to  statesmen  who  were  think- 
ing of  their  subject  and  to  aspirants  for  legal  promotion  who 
were  thinking  of  themselves.  "The  artillery  of  the  law," 
said  Barre,  "  has  been  brought  down  on  both  sides ;  but,  like 
artillery,  it  has  not  done  much  hurt ;"  and  on  a  subsequent 
occasion  he  entertained  an  audience  which,  in  those  days  of 
gunpowder,  always  welcomed  a  military  metaphor  from  such 


330  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

as  had  the  right  to  use  one,  by  comparing  the  law  officers  of 
the  Crown  to  the  elephants  in  an  Eastern  army,  which  with 
their  noise  and  dust  bewilder  their  own  troops  a  great  deal 
more  than  they  harm  the  enemy. 

There  was,  however,  one  lawyer  whom  public  opinion  placed 
in  a  category  apart  from  all  others  of  his  calling.  Wedder- 
burn  had  first  been  heard  of  in  London  as  a  dependent  of 
Bute ;  but  few  even  of  those  who  disliked  the  favorite  and 
disapproved  his  policy  found  it  in  their  hearts  to  blame  the 
young  Scotchman  for  availing  himself  of  patronage  which  he 
so  sorely  needed.  A  stranger  amidst  a  people  whose  language 
he  could  hardly  speak  to  be  understood,  and  whose  politics 
just  then  took  the  shape  of  ferocious  hatred  towards  the  coun- 
try of  his  birth,  he  might  well  be  excused  if  among  the  vari- 
ous party  leaders  he  attached  himself  to  the  first  who  showed 
him  kindness.  But  as  soon  as  lie  felt  his  feet  in  the  Court 
of  Chancery  and  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons — as 
soon  as  he  had  begun  to  think  for  himself  with  his  hard 
North-country  head,  and  to  express  his  thoughts  in  the  seduc- 
tive intonation  which  he  had  learned  from  an  Irish  actor  and 
an  Irish  master  of  elocution — he  lost  no  time  in  making  it 
known  that  gratitude  to  Bute  did  not  blind  him  to  the  dan- 
gers of  the  system  of  government  which  was  practised  by 
Bute's  master.  Wedderburn's  first  act,  after  he  was  natural- 
ized as  an  Englishman,  was  to  declare  for  the  liberties  of  Eng- 
land. So  at  least  the  Whigs,  proud  of  their  hopeful  convert, 
were  never  tired  of  repeating,  while  the  Tories  listened  with 
respect  and  admiration  to  an  orator  whose  manner  seemed  to 
show  that  he  was  convinced  himself,  and  whose  matter  was 
so  carefully  selected  and  arranged  as  to  prove  that  he  desired 
to  inform,  and  not  to  mislead  or  dazzle,  others.  Both  sides 
joined  in  regarding  him  as  a  forerunner  of  the  eminent  ad- 
vocates who,  between  his  day  and  ours,  have  asked  for  no 
better  lot  than  to  hold  the  faith  of  their  party,  to  be  admitted 
to  its  councils,  and  to  take  their  share  in  its  defeats,  its  labors, 
and  its  victories.1 

1  Lord  Campbell  asserts  that  Wedderburn's  patriotism  had  all  along 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  EOX.  331 

Such  were  Mackintosh  and  Eomilly  and  Follett.  Such 
men  are  not  hard  to  name  among  those  who  now  wear,  and 
honor,  the  gown.  But  Wedderburn  had  other  views  and  oth- 
er ambitions.  In  constructing  for  himself  a  reputation  for 
probity  and  public  spirit,  he  was  simply  manufacturing  an 
article  to  sell.  Doing  deliberately  and  completely  what  feebler 
schemers  did  fitfully  and  by  halves,  he  made  it  a  point  to  have 
in  stock  not  merely  such  hackneyed  staples  of  commerce  as 
legal  skill  and  parliamentary  ability,  but  the  more  precious 
commodities  of  the  confidence  and  affection  of  his  country- 
men, and  an  influence  which  extended  into  remote  corners 
of  the  British  empire.  In  March,  1770,  he  had  lectured  the 
House  of  Commons,  the  ministry,  and  the  king  himself  on 
their  lawless  proceedings  at  home  with  a  severity  which  forced 
even  the  objects  of  his  rebuke  to  confess  that  here  at  last  was 
one  who  reverenced  the  law  for  other  reasons  than  because 
he  lived  by  it.  In  May,  1770,  in  words  which  thousands  of 
people  in  America  then  quoted  to  each  other  with  hope,  and 
millions  have  since  read  with  contempt  and  aversion,  he  de- 
nounced as  wicked  and  foolish  the  arbitrary  taxation  of  the 
colonies  ;  predicted,  and  all  but  justified,  their  rebellion  ;  and 
told  Lord  North,  in  the  only  phrase  which  his  own  subsequent 
conduct  did  nothing  to  belie,  that,  until  the  fatal  policy  was 
abandoned,  no  man  of  honor  would  consent  to  be  a  minister. 
But  by  November  in  the  same  year  his  unerring  observation 
warned  him  that  he  had  sailed  far  enough  on  the  tack  of  pa- 
triotism. Having  taken  the  precaution  of  obtaining  from  the 
owner  of  the  borough  for  which  he  sat  free  leave  to  make 
the  best  bargain  that  he  could  in  any  quarter  that  he  chose, 
he  contrived  means  for  letting  the  ministers  know  that  he 
was  to  be  bought,  and  then  proceeded  to  exalt  their  apprecia- 
tion of  his  value  by  attacking  them  with  more  unction  than 


been  regarded  with  suspicion.  If  ever  it  was  possible  to  gather  with 
certainty  what  men  were  thinking  a  hundred  years  ago,  the  opposite 
conclusion  is  the  correct  once.  The  evidence  by  which  Lord  Campbell 
supports  his  statement  is  a  passage  from  Junius  written  five  months  after 
Wedderburn  had  changed  his  party. 


332  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

ever.  The  less  confiding  members  of  the  Opposition  at  last 
saw  through  his  game ;  but  it  is  painful  to  reflect  that  he  de- 
ceived Chatham,  and  that  the  efforts  of  the  old  statesman  to 
testify  his  esteem  for  Wedderburn  by  closer  and  more  fre- 
quent personal  intercourse  did  something  to  frighten  Lord 
North  into  concluding  the  business  on  the  turncoat's  own 
terms.1  On  the  twenty-fifth  of  January,  1771,  appeared  the 
announcement  that  Alexander  Wedderburn,  Esquire,  had  be- 
come solicitor-general  to  his  Majesty ;  and  it  may  safely  be 
affirmed  that  no  appointment  has  ever  caused  so  profound 
and  unpleasing  a  sensation.  The  new  law  officer  made  a  pre- 
tence of  defending  himself  by  putting  it  about  that  George 
Grenville  had  been  his  leader,  and  that,  since  Grenville's 
death,  he  was  bound  to  no  one.  But  it  was  a  little  too  much 
to  expect  the  world  to  believe  that  the  cleverest  Scotchman 
who  had  crossed  the  Tweed,  and  the  sharpest  lawyer  that 
ever  hugged  an  attorney,2  wanted  a  mentor  at  the  age  of 
six-and-tliirty  to  tell  him  that,  if  he  took  office,  he  would  have 
to  unsay  promptly  and  publicly  everything  that  he  had  said 
during  the  years  that  he  had  been  active  and  austere  in  op- 
position. He  might  be  bound  to  no  leader,  but  he  was  bound 
to  himself  —  to  his  own  solemn  pledges;  to  his  own  well- 
weighed  actions ;  to  the  multitudes  on  either  shore  of  the  At- 
lantic whom  he  had  taught  to  look  upon  him  as  their  counsel- 
lor and  protector. 

While  the  eminent  men  who  spent  their  all  for  the  cause 

1  On  the  twenty-second  of  November,  Chatham  begged  for  an  oppor- 
tunity of  exchanging  sentiments  with  one  "  whose  handsome  conduct 
and  great  abilities"  he  cordially  admired.  A  fortnight  later  on  he  wrote, 
"  Mr.  Wedderburn,  as  I  hear,  did,  upon  the  matter  of  juries' right  to  judge, 
speak  openly  and  like  a  man.  I  shall  ever  truly  honor  him."  Shel- 
burne,  on  the  other  hand,  had  begun  to  suspect  Wedderburn  before  the 
end  of  November ;  and  it  is  evident  that  his  doubts  were  shared  by 
Camden. 

2  Boswell  took  the  opinion  of  his  great  moralist  on  the  question  wheth- 
er Wedderburn  had  behaved  unworthily  in  canvassing  for  briefs  through 
the  agency  of  a  Scotch  bookseller.  "If  I  were  a  lawyer,"  said  Johnson, 
"I  should  not  solicit  employment;  not  because  I  should  think  it  wrong, 
but  because  I  should  disdain  it." 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  333 

which  Wedderburn  had  sacrificed  to  the  exigencies  of  his 
career  did  not  disguise  from  themselves  the  disastrous  conse- 
quences which  could  not  fail  to  result  from  the  treachery, 
they  were  mindful  of  their  own  dignity  when  speaking  of  the 
traitor.  Camden  reported  the  new  ministerial  arrangements 
for  Chatham's  information  in  language  as  dry  and  conven- 
tional as  that  of  the  London  Gazette.  "I  make  no  remark 
upon  all  this,"  he  added.  "  I  am  not  surprised,  but  grieved." 
Chatham  himself  expressed  his  pain  and  astonishment  in  a 
single  epithet.  "  The  part  of  Wedderburn,"  he  wrote,  "  is 
deplorable."  But  though  the  great  judge  and  the  great  states- 
man showed  a  generous  reluctance  to  avenge  the  wrongs  of 
the  public  upon  one  who  had  so  deeply  injured  themselves, 
there  was  no  want  of  people  who  were  both  able  and  willing 
to  give  the  solicitor-general  a  foretaste  of  what  history  had  in 
reserve  for  him.  Churchill,  indeed,  was  gone;  but  the  ad- 
mirers of  Churchill  exultingly  pointed  to  the  lines  in  which 
the  author  of  the  "  Rosciad,"  his  foresight  sharpened  by  a 
literary  quarrel,  had  prophesied  that  Wedderburn,  then  ob- 
scure and  respectable,  would  live  to  attain  a  splendid  infamy.1 
Horace  Walpole  spoke  the  sentiments  with  which  men  of  the 
world,  and  of  a  world  which  was  anything  but  squeamish,  re- 
garded this  act  of  unmatched  and  matchless  duplicity.  "I 
would  keep  a  shop,"  he  said  to  Mason,  "  and  sell  any  of  my 
own  works  that  would  gain  me  a  livelihood,  whether  books 
or  shoes,  rather  than  be  tempted  to  sell  myself.  'Tis  an  honest 
vocation  to  be  a  scavenger ;  but  I  would  not  be  solicitor-gen- 
eral." Plain  citizens,  who  were  not  sinecurists  or  fine  gentle- 
men, looked  to  Junius  as  the  interpreter  of  their  displeasure ; 
and  Junius,  conscious  that  he  did  well  to  be  angry,  spiced  his 
rhetoric  during  the  whole  spring  and  summer  with  epigrams, 
of  which  one,  at  least,  embodied  the  opinion  of  mankind  too 
compactly  to  be  forgotten.     "  In  vain,"  he  wrote  to  the  Duke 

1  "  To  mischief  trained,  e'en  from  his  mother's  womb ; 
Grown  old  in  fraud,  though  yet  in  manhood's  bloom; 
Adopting  arts  by  which  gay  villains  rise 
And  reach  the  heights  which  honest  men  despise." 
The  "  Rosciad  "  appeared  in  1761. 


334  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

of  Grafton,  in  June,  1771,  "  would  our  gracious  sovereign  have 
looked  round  him  for  another  character  as  consummate  as 
yours.  Lord  Mansfield  shrinks  from  his  principles ;  Charles 
Fox  is  yet  in  blossom ;  and  as  for  Mr.  Wedderburn,  there  is 
something  about  him  which  even  treachery  cannot  trust."  In 
Parliament,  the  brother-members  of  the  new  law  officer  took 
the  earliest  opportunity  of  apprising  him  that  he  must  hence- 
forward rely  exclusively  upon  his  talents,  since  his  character 
was  gone.  "When  the  writ  for  his  re-election  was  moved,  the 
House,  usually  so  forward  to  rejoice  with  the  fortunate  at  that 
supreme  moment  of  political  success,  gave  vent  to  its  collec- 
tive indignation  in  a  deep  groan.  When  the  day  came  for 
him  to  take  his  seat  on  the  Treasury  bench,  he  walked  down 
the  floor  between  the  men  whom  he  had  so  often  denounced 
as  false  to  their  country,  and  the  men  to  whom  he  had  now 
proved  false  himself,  blushing  as  red  as  fire ;  and  years  after- 
wards, when  Lord  North  was  declaiming  against  the  Whigs 
for  talking  of  patriotism  and  justice  while  they  meant  noth- 
ing but  pensions  and  places,  all  eyes  were  turned  to  the  spot 
where  the  former  associate  of  Rockingham  and  Savile  sat, 
"pale  as  death,"  at  the  elbow  of  the  prime-minister. 

Abandoned  by  their  most  capable  champion,  and  exasper- 
ated by  the  insolence  with  which  a  Parliament  which  was  nom- 
inally of  their  choice  trampled  at  every  step  on  some  valued 
law  or  cherished  right,  the  people  of  England,  never  so  little 
like  sheep  as  when  their  watch-dogs  have  deserted  them,  had 
at  last  been  wrought  into  the  humor  for  meeting  violence 
with  violence.  It  was  expected  that  the  lord  mayor  would 
learn  his  fate  on  Tuesday,  the  twenty-fifth  of  March  ;  and,  by 
noon  on  that  day,  all  London  was  in  the  streets.  The  roar  of 
an  enormous  multitude  which  escorted  him  to  St.  Stephen's 
and  then  waited  at  the  doors  to  see  him  safe  home,  in  a  tem- 
per that  foreboded  worse  things,  was  distinctly  heard  by  the 
members  who  were  debating  within,  whenever  their  own 
noise  did  not  drown  all  external  clamor;  for  the  storm  of 
controversy,  which  was  to  rage  without  intermission  during 
thirteen  livelong  hours,  began  as  soon  as  the  last  word  of  the 
benediction  was  out  of  the  chaplain's  mouth.    In  consequence 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  EOX.  335 

of  the  blunder  of  a  Treasury  official  not  accurately  informed 
as  to  which  among  the  national  representatives  was  in  royal 
pay,  an  independent  Tory  country  gentleman  had  received  a 
Treasury  circular  intended  only  for  the  courtiers.  On  open- 
ing his  letter,  the  astonished  baronet  found  himself  requested, 
with  the  transparent  decency  of  phrase  that  is  customary  in 
such  missives,  to  vote  as  a  partisan  on  an  occasion  when  he 
was  bound  in  conscience  to  discriminate  as  a  judge.1  The  Op- 
position were  justly  furious.  Sir  William  Meredith,  remem- 
bering with  pride  that  the  sturdy  resistance  of  the  Jacobites 
to  the  attainder  of  Sir  John  Fenwick  was  the  best  service 
which  his  old  party  had  ever  rendered  to  public  liberty,  dis- 
coursed gravely  and  forcibly  on  the  impropriety  of  canvass- 
ing for  a  judicial  sentence  as  if  it  were  a  question  of  a  clause 
in  the  Customs  Bill  or  an  item  in  the  Estimates.  "  It  is  con- 
trary," he  said,  "  to  every  notion  of  law  and  justice  to  try 
these  magistrates  by  a  judicature  three  fourths  of  whom  are 
prepared  to  condemn  them."  And  it  soon  was  evident  that 
they  were  to  be  condemned  unheard ;  for  the  lord  mayor, 
having  been  acquainted  by  the  Speaker  that  his  counsel  would 
be  debarred  from  arguing  the  very  point  upon  which  the  case 
hinged,  declined  to  go  through  the  farce  of  allowing  himself 
to  be  defended.  Having  silenced  the  professional  advocates, 
the  ministerialists  were  determined  not  to  tolerate  an  amateur, 
and  promptly  shouted  down  an  old-fashioned  Whig  who  was 
so  unnecessarily  punctilious  as  to  announce  his  intention  of 
considering  the  matter  under  its  legal  aspect. 

But  they  forgot,  in  their  impatience,  that  brute  force  was  a 
game  at  which  two,  and,  still  more,  at  which  twenty  thousand, 
could  play.     As  the  afternoon  wore  on,  every  fresh  member 

1  "  You  are  most  earnestly  requested  to  attend  early  to-morrow,  on  an 
affair  of  the  last  importance  to  the  Constitution  and  the  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  the  people  of  England."  Such  was  the  wording  of  the  letter. 
Its  meaning  no  one  who  has  ever  received  a  government  whip  could  for 
an  instant  doubt.  A  young  member  contributed  a  touch  of  local  color 
to  the  discussion  which  took  place  over  the  incident  by  describing  how 
a  Treasury  clerk  had  been  fetched  from  a  ball  at  midnight  to  despatch 
the  circulars. 


336  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

who  entered  the  House  brought  a  more  alarming  report  of  the 
tumult  which  reigned  without.   Each  new  comer,  as  he  turned 
into  Palace  Yard,  was  asked  whether  he  was  for  the  lord 
major ;  and  if  he  refused  to  answer,  care  was  taken  that  he 
should  remain  in  the  company  of  the  people  long  enough  to 
make  himself  acquainted  with  their  sympathies.     One  gentle- 
man was  two  hours  in  getting  through  the  throng.     Another 
was  squeezed  up  into  a  corner,  where,  if  his  neighbors  had 
recognized  him  as  a  Controller  of  the  Board  of  Green  Cloth, 
he  would  certainly  have  stayed  for  a  much  longer  space  of 
time  than  he  was  accustomed  to  spend  over  the  duties  of  his 
office.    George  Selwyn  was  with  difficulty  extricated  from  an 
encounter  into  which  he  had  been  provoked  by  the  unendura- 
ble indignity  of  being  hooted  by  mistake  for  George  Onslow. 
The  danger  of  the  situation  was  increased  by  the  mischievous 
conduct  of  Alderman   Townshend,  who  had  been   brought 
down  to  the  House,  pale  and  bandaged  from  a  recent  surgical 
operation,  in  order  to  pour  forth  a  diatribe  against  female 
caprice  and  backstairs  influence — which  fairly  electrified  even 
educated  hearers,  who  could  not  quite  get  Bute  and  the  Prin- 
cess Dowager  out  of  their  heads — and  the  mere  report  of 
which,  if  it  had  once  reached  the  streets,  might  at  any  mo- 
ment have  sent  the  mob  across  St.  James's  Park  to  Carlton 
House.     The  Speaker  directed  the  High  Constable  of  West- 
minster to  clear  the  neighborhood;    but  the  task  was  alto- 
gether beyond  the  limited  and  very  unreliable  force  which 
that  functionary  had  at  his  command.     Forty  men  were  not 
sufficient,  he  said ;  nor  twice  forty  :  and  if  he  called  out  every 
peace  officer  in  his  district,  he  could  only  muster  eighty  trun- 
cheons.    The  magistrates,  of  whom  six  were  in  attendance, 
did   something  to   disperse  the  populace;    but  Tories  and 
Whigs  alike  were  heartily  relieved  when  the   lord   mayor 
pleaded  bodily  exhaustion  as  an  excuse  for  retiring,  and  car- 
ried off  his  train  with  him.     Unable  to  forego  the  delight  of 
drawing  a  coach  from  Westminster  to  the  Mansion  House  by 
torchlight,  the  crowd  rolled  away  eastwards,  and  left  the  Com- 
mons happy  in  the  prospect  of  being  able  to  vote  and  go 
home  to  bed  without  running  the  gantlet  of  a  legion  of  in- 
quisitive Wilkites. 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  337 

The  matter  which  Parliament  had  in  hand  was  such  as  it 
could  not  easily  have  justified  to  the  satisfaction  even  of  less 
hostile  critics  than  those  who  had  been  besieging  its  portals. 
When  the  lord  mayor  had  departed,  Alderman  Oliver  was 
called  upon  to  make  his  defence ;  and  his  friends  replied  by 
requiring  to  know  the  charge  on  which  the  ministry  intended 
to  arraign  him.  Charles  Fox,  who  at  this  time  in  his  life  was 
always  ready  to  do  freedom  the  good  turn  of  exhibiting  tyr- 
anny in  its  most  hateful  colors,  settled  the  point  by  laying 
down  a  new  principle  in  criminal  procedure,  which  the  tribu- 
nal that  he  was  addressing  at  once  adopted  by  acclamation. 
"  What  we,"  he  said,  "  shall  move  against  the  gentleman  will 
depend  upon  what  he  shall  say  in  his  defence."  Barre  urged 
that  midnight  was  not  the  hour  for  calling  upon  a  court,  so 
constituted  and  so  advised,  to  deliver  what  was  at  once  a  ver- 
dict and  a  sentence;  but  Oliver  himself  pronounced  against 
delay  with  a  spirit  which  astonished  those  among  whom  he 
had  hitherto  passed,  almost  unremarked,  as  a  young  fellow  of 
quiet  and  refined  manners.  "  I  am  not,"  he  said,  "  in  the  least 
solicitous  to  postpone  the  business.  An  adjournment  of  one 
day,  or  ten,  will  make  no  difference  with  this  majority.  I 
know  that  the  punishment  which  I  am  to  receive  is  deter- 
mined upon ;  and  I  have  nothing  to  say,  neither  in  my  own 
defence,  nor  in  defence  of  the  City  of  London.  I  expect  little 
from  the  justice  of  this  House,  and  I  defy  its  power."  His 
honorable  contumacy  forced  the  ministers  to  show  their  hand, 
and  they  answered  his  challenge  by  moving  that  he  should  be 
committed  to  the  Tower. 

The  proposal,  when  seriously  put  forward  in  so  many  words, 
took  aback  even  those  who  held  themselves  bound  by  their 
position  to  credit  the  government  beforehand  with  the  ex- 
treme of  misbehavior  and  folly.  The  Opposition  seemed 
dazed  by  the  suddenness  of  the  blow.  Their  tactics  were  dis- 
concerted; all  unity  of  action  vanished;  and  every  man  took 
the  course  which  his  disposition  prompted.  The  more  sober 
Whigs  were  prepared  to  release  themselves  from  the  respon- 
sibility of  the  step  by  voting  against  it ;  but  there  were  others 
who  regarded  the  ordinary  forms  of  protest  as  inadequate  to 

22 


338  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

express  the  full  depth  and  breadth  of  their  dissent  from  so  in- 
fatuated a  policy.  William  Burke,  civilly  but  significantly, 
wished  the  House  good-night.  Alderman  Townshend  took 
himself  back  to  the  bed  which,  for  every  reason,  he  ought 
never  to  have  quitted.  Barre  began  by  telling  his  opponents 
that  he  should  speak  daggers,  and  ended  with  epithets  such 
that  they  could  with  difficulty  refrain  from  using  their 
swords.1  As  he  walked  down  the  House,  after  summoning 
every  honest  man  and  every  friend  of  England  to  follow  him, 
voices  were  raised  to  demand  that  he  should  answer  for  his 
words  at  the  bar ;  but  there  was  that  in  the  veteran's  counte- 
nance which  informed  all  who  saw  it  that  they  had  best  let 
him  go  in  peace.  Edmund  Burke,  too  depressed,  and  perhaps 
too  fatigued,  to  speak  loudly  or  at  length,  warned  the  friends 
'  who  sat  around  him,  in  a  tone  too  low  for  any  except  them  to 
catch,  that  by  prolonging  the  contest  they  would  effect  noth- 
ing but  to  increase  the  scandal.  "  All  debate,"  he  sadly  said, 
"  all  deliberation,  is  at  an  end ;"  and  such,  if  not  before,  most 
certainly  was  the  case  after  Charles  Fox,  in  a  speech  of  almost 
furious  vehemence  and  quite  marvellous  dexterity,  had  excited 
the  enthusiasm  and  bewildered  the  conscience  of  his  party. 
Clutching  tight  hold,  as  he  rushed  along,  of  whatever  plausi- 
ble argument  his  ingenuity  could  discover  in  support  of  the 
arbitrary  and  ignoble  doctrines  that  he  successively  propound- 
ed, he  never  let  it  go  until  he  had  thrust  it  home  with  a  skill 
and  an  impetuosity  which  for  a  moment  persuaded  that  ser- 

1 "  These  walls  are  unholy,  they  are  baleful,  they  are  deadly,  as  long  as 
a  prostitute  majority  holds  the  bolt  of  parliamentary  omnipotence,  and 
hurls  its  vengeance  only  upon  the  virtuous.  To  yourselves  I  consign 
you.     Enjoy  your  own  pandemonium. 

'  When  vice  prevails,  and  impious  men  bear  sway, 
The  post  of  honor  is  a  private  station.'  " 

"  I  spoke,  I  believe,  with  great  violence ; "  so  Barre"  confessed  to  Chat- 
ham after  he  had  slept,  or  tried  to  sleep,  upon  the  occurrences  of  this  ex- 
traordinary evening.  He  seemed  to  himself  to  have  been  only  five  min- 
utes on  his  feet ;  and  it  is  hardly  to  be  believed  that  the  most  conscience- 
stricken  assembly  of  Catilines  could  have  sat  quiet  for  any  longer  period 
under  such  a  blast  of  vituperation. 


1770-71.]  CHAKLES  JAMES  FOX  339 

vile  and  intolerant  throng  that,  in  muzzling  the  press  and 
flouting  the  law,  they  were  treading  in  the  footsteps  of  Mil- 
ton and  of  Somers.  In  a  peroration  which  a  true  Whig  can 
hardly  read  now  without  being  convinced  in  the  teeth  of  his 
common-sense — and  which  sent  forth  into  the  lobby  the  sham 
Whigs  who  then  heard  it  in  such  flocks  that  the  government 
carried  the  question  by  four  to  one,  with  a  dozen  votes  to 
spare — he  exhorted  his  brother-members  to  guard  their  rights 
and  liberties,  the  fruit  of  the  Long  Parliament  and  the  Revo- 
lution, against  the  assaults  of  the  commonalty,  as  their  fore- 
fathers had  guarded  them  against  the  encroachments  of  the 
sovereign.  Taking  his  text  from  the  events  of  that  very  af- 
ternoon— which  had  heated  his  blood,  as  danger  always  heated 
it  till  his  fighting-days,  and  all  days,  were  over  with  him — he 
confidently  and  successfully  appealed  to  the  instincts  of  an  as- 
sembly of  English  gentlemen  who  had  the  shouts  of  a  defiant 
mob  still  ringing  in  their  ears.  "  The  business  of  the  peo- 
ple," he  exclaimed,  "is  to  choose  us.  It  is  ours  to  maintain 
the  independence  of  Parliament.  Whether  that  independence 
is  attacked  by  the  people  or  by  the  Crown  is  a  matter  of  little 
consequence.  It  is  the  attack,  not  the  quarter  it  proceeds 
from,  that  we  are  to  punish;  and  if  we  are  to  be  controlled 
in  our  necessary  jurisdiction,  can  it  signify  whether  faction 
intimidate  us  with  a  rabble,  or  the  king  surround  us  with  his 
Guards  ?  If  we  are  driven  from  the  direct  line  of  justice  by 
the  threats  of  a  mob,  our  existence  is  useless  in  the  communi- 
ty. The  minority  within  doors  need  only  assault  us  by  their 
myrmidons  without,  to  gain  their  ends  upon  every  occasion. 
Therefore,  as  we  are  chosen  to  defend  order,  I  am  for  sending 
those  magistrates  to  the  Tower  who  have  attempted  to  destroy 
it.  Convinced  that  we  are  here  to  do  justice,  whether  it  is 
agreeable  or  disagreeable,  I  will  not  be  a  rebel  to  my  king,  to 
my  country,  or  to  my  own  heart  for  the  loudest  huzza  of  an 
inconsiderate  multitude." 

Eight  or  wrong,  late  or  early — whether  he  was  outraging 
the  sentiments  of  the  multitude  or  faithfully  laboring  for  its 
interests — Charles  Fox  was  never  fated  to  enjoy  much  of  its 
applause.    He  now  received  a  proof  (on  which,  in  his  youth- 


34:0  THE  EAELY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

ful  eagerness  to  be  conspicuous,  he  may  be  excused  for  plum- 
ing himself  as  a  sort  of  left-handed  compliment)  that,  for  his 
age,  he  was  the  most  unpopular  man  not  only  in  England,  but 
in  English  history.  Within  two  years  of  his  maiden  speech 
he  had  contrived  to  attract  to  himself  an  amount  of  active 
dislike  equal  to  that  which  a  few,  and  only  a  few,  great  min- 
isters have  carried  to  the  grave  or  the  scaffold  as  the  accumu- 
lation of  a  lifetime. 

On  Thursday,  the  twenty-seventh  of  March,  the  case  of  the 
lord  mayor  came  on  for  a  final  hearing.  Fiercely  resenting 
the  condemnation  of  one  of  their  magistrates,  and  arguing 
therefrom  the  measure  which  would  be  dealt  out  to  the  other, 
the  citizens  of  London  attended  Crosby  to  the  place  of  judg- 
ment with  the  air  of  men  who,  if  the  day  went  against  their 
champion,  were  sternly  resolved  to  know  the  reason  why.  A 
committee  of  four  aldermen  and  eight  common-councillors, 
who  had  been  unanimously  appointed  in  a  full  court  to  assist 
him  with  their  countenance  and  advice,  and  pay  his  charges 
out  of  the  municipal  funds,  attended  him  as  his  immediate 
body-guard.  Then  came  a  long  procession  of  merchants  and 
bankers,  shopkeepers  and  brokers ;  while  before,  behind,  and 
all  around  surged  the  population  of  the  great  capital,  glad,  as 
always,  to  make  a  holiday  when  their  betters  set  them  the  ex- 
ample, and  exulting  in  the  anticipation  of  such  doings  as  had 
not  been  witnessed  since  the  day  when — by  a  combination 
of  circumstances  and  associations  the  like  of  which  can  never 
recur — the  author  of  the  North  Briton  attained  the  age  of 
forty-five.  There  was,  indeed,  every  prospect  of  a  glorious 
riot.  The  Guards,  both  horse  and  foot,  were  ready  to  turn 
out  under  arms  at  a  minute's  notice ;  but  there  was  not  stand- 
ing-room for  a  single  red-coat  within  three  hundred  yards  of 
St.  Margaret's  Church,  except  what  he  could  make  for  him- 
self with  the  butt  of  his  musket  or  the  hoofs  of  his  charger. 
The  civil  guardians  of  the  peace,  of  every  degree,  had  been 
posted  betimes  upon  the  ground  ;  but  there  were  almost  more 
justices  at  hand  to  read  the  Act  than  officers  to  enforce  it. 
The  constables  were  speedily  disarmed;  and  when  Lord 
North  drove  up,  he  was  saluted  by  having  one  of  their  staves 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  341 

thrust  in  his  face  through  the  carriage-window.  After  break- 
ing the  glasses,  the  rabble  proceeded  to  demolish  the  vehicle. 
They  got  the  prime-minister  out ;  they  tore  his  hat  into  a  hun- 
dred pieces;  and  there  was  a  moment  when  the  bystanders 
apprehended  with  horror  that  the  scene  which  a  century  be- 
fore had  been  enacted  under  the  archway  at  the  Hague  would 
be  repeated  in  Parliament  Street.  But  among  those  bystand- 
ers was  most  fortunately  Sir  "William  Meredith,  who  dashed 
in  to  the  rescue  with  a  courage  which  North  generously  ac- 
knowledged and  handsomely  repaid.1  Sir  William,  from  the 
exclamations  which  he  heard  around  him  in  the  scuffle,  o-ath- 
ered  that  the  treatment  experienced  by  the  First  Lord  of  the 
Treasury  was  intended  for  the  Junior  Lord  of  the  Admiralty — 
a  comedy,  or,  as  it  nearly  turned  out,  a  tragedy,  of  errors  not 
calculated  to  increase  the  prime-minister's  affection  for  a  sub- 
ordinate who  already  balanced  him  in  political  weight  as 
much  as  in  the  corporal  bulk  that  was  the  point  of  resem- 
blance between  them.  Charles  himself  got  off  with  less  mor- 
tal peril  than  his  leader,  but  in  a  still  more  woful  plight. 
The  populace,  infuriated  by  the  sight  of  any  panels  exhibit- 
ing those  family  supporters  which  were  as  little  like  foxes  as 
the  motto  beneath  them  represented  what  had  hitherto  been 
the  family  practice,2  wrecked  his  coach,  and  his  brother's  like- 
wise. They  pelted  him  with  oranges,  with  stones,  and  even 
with  handfuls  of  London  mud.  They  rolled  him  and  his  fine 
clothes  in  the  kennel ;  the  very  suit,  may  be,  that  had  come 
safe  on  his  back  across  the  Channel,  on  the  occasion  when  a 
whole  tailor's  shop  which  he  was  bringing  over  for  the  yearly 
consumption  of  himself  and  his  friends  was  seized  and  burned 
by  the  searchers  of  the  Dover  Custom-house.8     The  speech  in 

1  He  gave  a  good  living  to  Sir  William's  brother. 

3  "Et  vitam  impendere  vero." 

3  During  the  preceding  winter  a  foolish  paragraph  went  the  round  of 
the  papers  to  the  effect  that  Charles  Fox  had.  been  sent  over  to  France 
with  five  thousand  guineas  for  the  Comte  du  Barry,  and  a  diamond  neck- 
lace for  the  countess,  as  bribes  to  induce  the  pair  to  prevail  on  the  King 
of  Spain  to  come  to  terms  with  the  English  ministry  on  the  matter  of 
the  Falkland  Islands.     The  real  nature  of  the  errand  which  took  him  to 


34:2  THE   EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

which  on  the  morrow  he  made  his  complaint  to  the  House  of 
Commons  has  perished  unreported;  and  those  who  love  to 
read  a  great  orator  on  the  stimulating  topic  of  his  own  per- 
sonal wrongs  would  exchange  the  "Pro  Domo  Sua,"  and  almost 
the  "Midias"  itself,  for  a  sample  of  such  eloquence  inspired  by 
such  an  injury. 

The  Speaker  very  properly  refused  to  let  business  be  trans- 
acted under  the  pressure  of  external  intimidation.  When  the 
magistrates  sent  in  word  that  they  were  powerless,  he  trans- 
ferred the  responsibility  of  restoring  the  peace  to  the  sheriffs 
of  London,  who  luckily  were  also  members  of  Parliament. 
Those  officers  (Wilkites  both  of  them,  or  they  never  would 
have  been  sheriffs)  undertook  to  dismiss  the  crowd  on  the  un- 
derstanding that  it  should  not  be  called  a  mob ;  and,  with  the 
help  of  some  leading  members  of  the  Opposition,  who  accom- 
panied them  into  the  streets,  they  persuaded  four  fifths  of  the 
people  outside  to  go  quietly  home,  and  procured  sufficient 
force  to  keep  the  remainder  in  bounds.  But  the  zeal  which 
the  Whigs  displayed  in  the  cause  of  order  did  not  deter  their 
opponents  from  charging  them  with  having  planned  and  sub- 
sidized the  riot ;  and  the  calumny  was  all  the  harder  to  bear 
because  the  first  suggestion  of  it  came  from  Wedderburn. 
He  who  had  taught  his  countrymen  to  agitate  —  who  had 
never  been  so  fluent  and  so  fervid  as  when  he  was  reminding 
crowded  and  excited  assemblies  how  their  less  patient  forefa- 
thers had  dealt  with  administrations  not  so  wicked  (such  was 
his  favorite  adjective)  as  that  to  which  he  now  belonged; 
who  had  publicly  abjured  the  damnable  doctrine  that  a  reso- 
lution of  the  House  of  Commons  could  abrogate  and  annihi- 
late the  law  of  the  land — now  declared  himself  unable  to  be- 
lieve that  those  very  London  citizens  who  had  listened  to  and 
applauded  his  oath  would  have  public  spirit  enough  to  array 
themselves  on  the  side  of  the  law  against  a  resolution  of  the 
Commons,  unless  the  statesmen  whose  friendship  he  so  lately 
pretended   to  regard  as  his  most  cherished  possession  had 

Paris,  and  its  disastrous  issue,  as  above  related,  have  been  preserved  in  a 
small  volume  of  his  Ana,  published  within  a  few  months  of  his  death. 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  343 

hired  their  services  with  drink  and  silver.  Savile  had  re- 
course to  the  only  weapon  with  which  men  who  are  at  once 
proud  and  upright  deign  to  encounter  treachery,  and  walked 
out  of  the  House  without  bestowing  a  reproach  on  the  apos- 
tate. William  Burke,  not  caring  to  mince  his  words,  pro- 
nounced the  accusation  an  egregious  falsehood.  Edmund, 
with  less  heat  and  not  less  justice,  desired  the  ministry  to  re- 
member that  there  were  two  ways  of  raising  riots — one  by 
paying  the  rioters,  and  the  other  by  provoking  them.  But 
no  one  was  so  deeply  hurt  as  Meredith.  "May  I  never,"  he 
exclaimed,  "  find  mercy  if  I  show  mercy  to  the  man  who  set 
that  mob  on  to  attack  the  noble  lord  in  whose  defence  I  vent- 
ured myself !" 

It  was  amidst  an  audience  agitated  by  such  emotions  that 
North  delivered  a  speech  which,  feeble  as  long  as  he  confined 
himself  to  his  subject,  when  he  referred  to  his  own  situation, 
became  as  dramatic  as  anything  in  the  third  act  of  "  Richard 
the  Second."  "  I  certainly,"  he  said,  "  did  not  come  into  office 
by  my  own  desire.  Had  I  my  wish,  I  would  have  quitted  it 
a  hundred  times ;  but  as  to  my  resigning  now,  look  at  the 
transactions  of  this  day,  and  say  whether  it  is  possible  for  a 
man  with  a  grain  of  spirit,  with  a  grain  of  sense,  to  think  of 
withdrawing  from  the  service  of  his  king  and  his  country  at 
such  a  moment.  Unhappy  that  I  am,  that  moment  finds  me 
in  this  situation ;  and  there  are  but  two  ways  in  which  I  can 
now  cease  to  be  minister — by  the  will  of  my  sovereign,  which 
I  shall  be  ready  to  obey ;  or  by  the  pleasure  of  the  gentlemen 
now  at  our  doors,  when  they  shall  be  able  to  do  a  little  more 
than  they  have  done  this  day."  But  it  was  not  fear  of  life  or 
limb  that  called  forth  the  tears  which  were  running  fast  down 
the  cheeks  of  one  whose  ordinary  habit  it  was  to  trifle  when 
brave  men  were  anxious,  and  to  laugh  wThen  wise  men  were 
grave.  North,  in  that  bitter  hour,  would  have  cheerfully  ac- 
cepted the  fate  of  De  Witt  if  he  could  have  met  death  with 
the  consciousness  that  he  had  preserved  the  self-respect  of  an 
English  statesman.  The  least  penetrating  observer  among  all 
who  sat  upon  those  crowded  benches  was  at  no  loss  to  inter- 
pret the  passions  which  stirred  and  distracted  that  torpid  and 


344  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

cynical  nature.  It  moved  the  pity  of  open  and  honest  foes  to 
watch  the  hapless  minister,  as  by  gesture,  voice,  and  manner 
he  confessed  himself  the  scapegoat  of  a  policy  which  he  de- 
tested and  disapproved ;  the  slave  of  those  who  were  in  name 
his  own  servants,  but  who  looked  to  another  for  directions  and 
for  rewards,  and  who,  tired  of  maintaining  the  appearance  of 
subordination,  had  thrown  off  the  mask  and  assumed  without 
disguise  the  airs  of  successful  mutineers.  At  length  he  knew 
what  he  had  done  when  he  subjected  himself,  as  Chatham 
trtily  said,  to  the  insolence  of  a  vile  cabal  who  had  made  him 
the  scourge  of  the  country  and  now  insulted  his  shame  and 
distress.  "  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,"  wrote  Chatham's  most  regular 
correspondent  in  the  Commons,  "  scarce  restrains  an  absolute 
avowal  of  his  power;"  and  even  if  Elliot,  or  others  of  his 
'troop,  had  been  touched  by  a  feeling  of  compassion  for  their 
humbled  chief,  it  was  then  too  late  to  give  effect  to  their  re- 
pentance. The  king's  friends  could  not  allow  themselves  to 
be  softened  by  tears  which  the  king  was  not  there  to  see.  The 
draught  had  to  be  swallowed  to  the  dregs ;  and  the  prime- 
minister,  feeling  and  looking  rather  like  a  culprit  than  an  ac- 
cuser, commissioned  one  of  his  more  hardened  colleagues  to 
make  the  announcement  which  could  no  longer  be  averted. 
Welbore  Ellis,  who  never  minded  what  came  into  a  day's  work 
so  long  as  it  did  not  endanger  the  day's  wages,  rose  to  say 
that  the  crime  of  the  lord  mayor  was  undoubtedly  heinous 
beyond  that  which  had  been  so  severely  visited  on  the  person 
of  Oliver ;  but  that,  in  consideration  of  his  broken  health,  and 
to  show  the  tender  mercy  of  the  House,  the  cabinet  were  of 
opinion  that  he  might  be  spared  the  Tower  and  committed 
to  the  gentler  custody  of  the  sergeant-at-arms.  Crosby,  how- 
ever, would  have  none  of  their  indulgence,  and  scornfully  de- 
clared that  he  was  quite  well  enough  to  share  the  lodgings  of 
his  brother-alderman ;  so  that  the  government  had  no  choice 
but  to  order  him  to  the  Tower,  whither,  but  for  his  active  and 
loyal  assistance,  they  most  assuredly  never  could  have  got 
him.  Announcing  that  he  had  obtained  leave  to  sleep  one 
more  night  in  his  own  bed,  he  returned  to  the  Mansion 
House,  and  left  it  again  at  four  in  the  morning  for  his  pris- 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  345 

on  ;  but  even  this  stratagem  hardly  saved  the  deputy  sergeant 
from  the  vengeance  of  the  mob,  who  would  have  hanged  him 
on  a  sign-post  as  high  as  Porteous  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
vigorous  interposition  of  his  captive. 

By  the  time  that  it  was  a  week  old,  Chatham's  forecast  had 
come  true  to  the  letter.  "  These  wTretches  called  ministers," 
he  wrote  on  the  twenty-first  of  March,  "  will  be  sick  enough 
of  their  folly  (not  forgetting  iniquity)  before  the  whole  busi- 
ness is  over.  They  have  brought  themselves  and  their  master 
where  ordinary  inability  never  arrives,  and  nothing  but  first- 
rate  geniuses  in  incapacity  can  reach ;  a  situation  wherein 
there  is  nothing  they  can  do  which  is  not  a  fault."  And  so, 
as  they  had  reached  the  point  where  one  additional  fault 
might  be  fatal  to  the  realm,  it  only  remained  for  them  to  do 
nothing.  Wilkes  had  been  directed  to  attend  at  the  bar  of  the 
Commons  on  Monday,  the  eighth  of  April ;  but  by  adjourning 
till  Tuesday,  the  ninth,  the  House  judiciously  contrived  to 
evade  its  own  order.  The  prosecutions  against  the  printers 
were  dropped ;  and  wThen,  in  contempt  of  a  resolution  wThich 
had  been  solemnly  entered  on  the  journals  of  Parliament, 
Wheble  and  his  associates  pursued  the  Speaker's  messenger  as 
a  criminal  for  having  attempted  to  enforce  the  Speaker's  war- 
rant, the  government,  without  looking  too  closely  into  the  le- 
gality of  the  step  to  which  they  found  themselves  driven, 
made  shift  to  hush  up  the  business  by  means  of  a  nolle  pro- 
sequi. Crosby  and  Oliver,  indeed,  remained  in  prison ;  but 
they  lived  there  in  state,  and  certainly  in  clover.  The  City 
kept  them  a  table  furnished  according  to  civic  ideas  of  what 
was  necessary  for  men  who  required  not  only  nourishment, 
but  consolation.  The  Whig  magnates,  after  a  full  and  grave 
discussion,  made  up  their  minds  to  show  them  an  attention 
which,  as  a  compliment  from  peers  to  burgesses,  meant  a  great 
deal  more  a  hundred  years  ago  than  it  does  now.  "  We  would 
not,"  wrote  Lord  Eockingham,  "have  a  procession,  but  only  a 
few,  and  those  considerable  ones;"  and  on  the  last  day  of 
March  the  journals  announced  to  an  awe-struck  public  that 
two  dukes,  a  marquis,  and  an  earl,  with  Burke  and  Dowdes- 
well  as  representative  commoners,  had  waited  on  the  lord 


346  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  VIII. 

mayor  and  Mr.  Oliver  in  their  apartments  in  the  Tower. 
Their  humbler  admirers  did  what  they  could  to  evince  their 
sympathy  by  marching  twice  in  one  week  to  Tower  Hill,  in 
order  to  behead  Bute  and  hang  the  George  On  slows  in  effigy.1 
Gold  boxes  and  laudatory  addresses  from  towns  of  every  size 
and  rank  between  Newcastle  and  Honiton  showed  that  may- 
ors and  aldermen,  all  the  country  over,  made  common  cause 
with  the  illustrious  martyrs  of  municipal  independence.  Par- 
liament was  prorogued  on  the  eighth  of  May ;  and  at  the  close 
of  the  session,  by  a  self-acting  process,  all  House  of  Commons 
prisoners  regained  their  liberty.  To  avoid  a  popular  demon- 
stration, the  ministry  purposely  kept  the  day  of  prorogation 
secret ;  but  by  the  time  that  the  Park  guns  began  to  fire  and 
the  Tower  gates  were  opened,  a  cavalcade  was  already  in  wait- 
ing to  conduct  Crosby  and  Oliver  to  the  Mansion  House, 
more  imposing  by  far  than  that  which  attended  the  king 
from  the  Palace  to  the  House  of  Lords.  The  aldermen  in 
their  scarlet  gowns,  and  the  Artillery  Company  in  full  uni- 
form, escorted  the  lord  mayor  in  his  state-coach  through  roar- 
ing streets,  which,  as  soon  as  night  fell,  honored  the  champi- 
ons of  the  city  and  the  press  with  an  illumination  so  general 
and  spontaneous  that  the  very  apprentices  of  Paternoster  Row 
had  no  excuse  for  breaking  windows. 

While  the  instruments  had  their  triumph,  the  master  hand 
was  not  forgotten.  The  Court  of  Common  Council  voted 
Wilkes  a  silver  cup,  and  left  to  himself  the  selection  of  the 
design.  In  commemoration  of  the  date  on  which  the  publisher 
of  the  Middlesex  Journal  had  been  brought  up  to  him  for 
judgment,  he  chose  the  scene  of  the  Ides  of  March  in  the 
Roman  Senate-house,  "  as  certainly  one  of  the  greatest  sacri- 
fices to  public  liberty  recorded  in  history."  On  that  singular 
piece  of  plate  appeared  the  dictator  "  in  an  attitude  of  fall- 


1  u  I  had  the  honor,  sir,"  said  Colonel  Onslow,  addressing  himself  to 
the  Speaker  in  February,  1774,  "  to  be  hanged  in  effigy  on  Tower  Hill  on 
the  same  gibbet  with  you.  Indeed,  in  the  dying-speeches,  the  patriots 
paid  me  the  greater  compliment ;  for  they  gave  out  that  I  died  penitent, 
but  that  you,  sir,  remained  hardened  to  the  last." 


1770-71.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  347 

ing,"  and  Brutus  congratulating  Cicero  on  the  recovery  of 
freedom.  Above  were  engraved  the  city  arms,  with  a  dagger 
in  the  first  quarter ;  while  below,  framed  in  myrtle  and  oak 
leaves,  ran  Churchill's  prayer  that  every  tyrant  might  feel 

"  The  keen  deep  searchings  of  a  patriot's  steel." 

The  subject  and  the  inscription  were  in  the  taste  of  a  man 
who  exaggerated  the  taste  of  his  age ;  but  none  the  less  was 
the  power  of  Parliament  to  keep  the  country  in  the  dark  as 
dead  as  Julias  Caesar.  A  twelvemonth  afterwards  the  sher- 
iffs, in  an  address  to  the  Livery,  boasted  with  just  pride  that 
the  House  of  Commons  "  tacitly  acquiesced  in  the  claim  made 
by  London  citizens  on  behalf  of  the  public  at  large,  that  the 
constituents  had  a  right  to  be  informed  of  the  proceedings  of 
their  servants  in  Parliament."  All  pretence  of  keeping  the 
debates  secret  had  by  that  time  been  dropped.  "Your  galler- 
ies," said  Burke,  on  the  budget-night  of  1772,  "  are  like  to 
break  down  with  the  weight  of  strangers,  as  you  are  pleased 
to  call  the  people  of  England."  The  door,  once  forced,  was 
never  locked  again ;  and  if  from  time  to  time  there  was  talk 
of  shutting  it,  it  was  thrust  wide  open  by  a  hand  strong 
enough,  if  need  were,  to  have  torn  it  from  the  hinges.  When 
Colonel  Luttrell,  in  January,  1778,  stated  his  intention  of 
moving  that  strangers  should  be  excluded — on  the  well-worn 
plea  that  he  had  been  misrepresented  in  a  newspaper — Fox, 
to  whom  seven  years  had  taught  some  maxims  of  political 
wisdom  even  less  obvious  than  that  which  he  now  rose  to  en- 
force, declared  that  in  his  view  the  only  method  of  preventing 
misrepresentation  was  by  giving  more  publicity  than  ever  to 
the  debates  and  decisions  of  the  House,  since  the  surest  recipe 
for  killing  a  lie  was  to  multiply  the  witnesses  to  the  truth. 
The  reporters  might  well  be  at  ease  as  to  the  future  of  their 
craft,  when  once  they  had  taken  down  in  black  and  white  so 
sweeping  and  explicit  a  recantation  from  the  mouth  of  the 
most  formidable  among  their  ancient  enemies. 


318  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 


CHAPTER  IX. 
1771-1772. 

Fox  at  this  Period  a  Consistent  Defender  of  the  King's  System. — The 
Case  of  New  Shoreharn. — The  Grenville  Act. — Quarrel  between  Fox 
and  Wedderburn. — The  Duke  of  Portland  and  Sir  James  Lowther. — 
The  Nullum  Tempus  Bill. — Mnemon. — Pertinacity  of  Sir  James  Low- 
ther.— Sir  William  Meredith  introduces  an  Amending  Bill,  which  is 
opposed,  and  at  length  defeated,  by  Fox.  —  Fox  and  Burke.  —  Fox 
sends  a  Challenge  to  an  Unknown  Adversary. — The  Petition  of  the 

*  Clergy,  and  its  Fate. — Story  of  Mr.  Lindsey. — The  Dissenters'  Relief 
Bill. — Priestley  and  the  Early  Unitarians. — Courage  and  Independence 
of  Charles  Fox. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Charles  Fox  reserved  all  his 
combativeness  for  such  far-sounding  and  historical  contro- 
versies as  those  which  the  House  of  Commons  maintained 
against  the  shire  of  Middlesex  and  the  city  of  London.  He 
loved  the  old  political  system  under  which  his  father  had 
risen  to  greatness  too  frankly  and  loyally  to  place  himself 
beneath  its  standard  only  on  the  occasion  of  a  battle  royal  or 
a  full-dress  parade.  Whenever  there  was  a  call  to  arms  in 
the  most  remote  outwork  of  that  stronghold  of  abuses  behind 
whose  protection  the  country  was  with  impunity  misgoverned, 
Fox  appeared  at  the  threatened  spot  with  all  his  artillery,  al- 
most as  soon  as  the  assailants  had  opened  their  trenches.  His 
prowess  in  the  cause  was  a  theme  for  constant  discourse  and 
admiration  among  the  rank  and  file  of  the  ministerial  party ; 
but  he  never  more  than  half  pleased  the  managers.  North 
and  Thurlow  and  the  Bedfords  had  quite  wit  enough  to  per- 
ceive that  his  devotion  to  the  very  peculiar  institutions  which 
Lord  Holland  had  taught  him  to  revere  arose  from  the  gener- 
ous conservatism  of  youth,  and  not  from  the  sordid  anticipa- 
tions of  self-interest.  They  foresaw  that  an  enthusiasm  like 
his,  when  once  it  had  detected  itself  to  be  misplaced,  would 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  349 

not  be  long  before  it  was  converted  into  bitter  and  most  ef- 
fectual hostility;  and  they  looked  forward  uneasily  to  the 
day  when  his  energy  and  intrepidity  might  be  directed  from 
the  outside  against  those  weak  points  in  their  circle  of  de- 
fence whither,  with  a  promptitude  which  showed  his  all  too 
accurate  knowledge  of  the  ground,  he  now  flew  to  post  him- 
self on  the  first  alarm  of  danger. 

That  alarm  never  rang  more  clearly  to  a  discerning  ear 
than  when  the  first  committee  which  had  ever  been  appoint- 
ed under  George  Grenville's  Act  for  securing  the  purity  of 
the  constituencies  brought  in  its  first  report  In  the  Novem- 
ber of  1770,  there  was  an  election  in  the  borough  of  New 
Shoreham,  in  consequence  of  the  death  of  a  sitting  member. 
The  country  gentlemen  of  Sussex,  who  knew  what  sort  of  a 
place  New  Shoreham  was,  kept  aloof  from  the  contest,  which 
lay  between  two  candidates,  of  whom  one,  in  the  phrase  of 
the  day,  was  a  Nabob,  and  the  other  a  Caribbee.  Mr.  Pur- 
ling, the  West  Indian,  got  only  thirty-seven  votes,  as  against 
eighty-seven  which  were  secured  by  his  opponent,  Mr.  Rum- 
bold.  The  bribery  oath  was  administered  to  Mr.  Rumbold's 
supporters  and  freely  taken ;  but  it  was  noticed  that  the  re- 
turning-officer,  Hugh  Roberts  by  name,  put  to  each  of  them 
certain  queries  offensive  to  the  dignity  of  a  British  citizen ; 
and  the  surprise  which  his  conduct  throughout  the  day  pro- 
voked deepened  into  positive  stupefaction  when,  at  the  close 
of  the  poll,  he  declared  Mr.  Purling  duly  elected.  When 
questioned  by  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  Rob- 
erts stated  that  he  was  aware  that  Mr.  Rumbold  had  a  legal 
majority,  but  that  he  was  aware  also  of  the  means  by  which 
the  majority  had  been  obtained.  There  was,  he  said,  at 
Shoreham  a  company  which,  instituted  with  a  view  to  the 
promotion  of  ship-building,  the  most  important  among  the 
confessed  industries  of  the  town,  had  for  some  years  past 
been  reorganized  on  a  less  worldly  basis.  Towards  the  end 
of  1764,  the  association  resolved  to  devote  its  efforts  to  works 
of  charity,  called  itself  the  Christian  Club,  and  swore  all  its 
members  on  the  four  Evangelists  to  be  steadfast,  true,  and  si- 
lent.    Those  members  included  the  majority  of  the  borough 


350  THE  EAELY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

voters ;  and  the  society,  whether  in  the  commercial  or  the  re- 
ligious phase  of  its  existence,  had,  in  point  of  fact,  never 
been  anything  else  than  a  trades-union  for  purposes  of  cor- 
ruption. On  the  principle  that  no  man  has  a  right  to  injure 
his  neighbor  by  selling  his  conscience  below  the  market-price, 
and  that  the  skilful  and  the  clumsy,  the  impudent  and  the 
bashful,  ought  to  share  and  share  alike  in  the  wages  fund  of 
bribery,  the  club,  on  the  eve  of  an  election,  made  its  bargain 
for  the  payment  of  a  lump  sum,  which  was  divided,  after  the 
contest  was  over,  among  men  who  were  thus  enabled  to  swear 
at  the  polling-booth  that  they  had  never  received  a  farthing 
for  their  votes.  Those  votes  had  been  bought  by  Kumbold 
for  five  -  and  -  thirty  pounds  apiece ;  and  Roberts,  who  had 
once  been  a  Christian  brother,  and  had  left  the  fraternity,  dis- 
'gusted  (according  to  his  own  story)  at  finding  that  his  col- 
leagues were  quite  indifferent  to  the  nationality  of  their  mem- 
ber as  long  as  they  saw  the  color  of  his  money,1  was  in  a  po- 
sition to  identify  seventy-six  of  the  majority  as  members  of 
the  club.  With  these  facts  in  his  cognizance,  he  had  made 
bold  to  take  the  law  into  his  own  hands,  and  save  the  expense 
of  a  petition  by  summarily  altering  a  return  which  no  election 
committee  that  ever  was  packed  could  for  an  instant  hesitate 
to  reverse. 

These  disclosures  produced  a  wholesome  though  transient 
effect  upon  the  opinion  and  the  tone  of  Parliament.  Ten 
years  of  personal  government  and  secret  influence  had  not 
yet  so  impaired  the  character  of  English  gentlemen  but  that 
they  had  still  the  grace  to  hate  their  own  faults  when  dis- 
torted in  a  vulgar  mirror.  Burke,  for  once,  had  the  House 
with  him,  as  he  moralized  upon  the  spectacle  of  a  depravity 
so  hypocritical,  and,  above  all,  so  systematic.  "  I  am  shocked," 
he  said,  "at  the  wisdom  to  be  found  in  these  transactions.     I 

1  "Lord  John  Cavendish. — Do  you  remember  a  meeting  of  the  club  upon 
a  false  report  of  Sir  Samuel  Cornish's  death  ? 

"Roberts. — Yes.  They  were  debating  upon  the  several  gentlemen  who 
were  to  represent  the  borough.  They  said  they  would  vote  for  the  mem- 
ber who  would  give  most  money.  John  Wood  said, '  Yes,  damn  him,  if 
he  was  a  Frenchman.' " 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.       ,  351 

am  shocked  at  the  virtue  —  at  the  principles  of  honor  and 
trust  upon  which  these  men  acted :  principles  deserving  a 
better  cause.  It  is  a  wasp's  nest — most  curiously  constructed, 
but  still  a  wasp's  nest — and  as  such  it  must  be  destroyed." 
A  bill  disfranchising  the  members  of  the  Christian  Club  was 
introduced,  and  an  address  praying  his  Majesty  to  order  a 
prosecution  of  the  ring-leaders  in  the  conspiracy  was  carried, 
with  general,  but  not  quite  with  universal,  acceptance.  What- 
ever others  might  do,  Charles  Fox  was  not  to  be  fed  with 
grandiloquent  professions  of  virtue,  and  sermonized  into  the 
support  of  pharisaical  measures.  He  was  almost  beside  him- 
self with  contempt  and  indignation  at  the  blindness  of  men 
who  could  not  or  would  not  see  that,  in  chastising  electoral 
impurity,  they  were  striking  at  one  of  the  pair  of  pillars  on 
which  the  roof  rested  that  sheltered  them  all  in  common. 
The  Christian  Club  was  as  essential  a  feature  in  the  system 
which  claimed  their  allegiance  and  provided  them  with  their 
bread  as  the  privy  purse  itself.  The  policy  that  found  favor 
with  the  Court  was  one  which  would  not  have  lived  through 
the  first  week  in  the  first  session  of  an  unbought  Parliament ; 
and  bribed  representatives  would  never  be  returned  a  second 
time  by  unbribed  constituents.  Fox  knew  the  political  situa- 
tion as  exactly  and  thoroughly  as  any  veteran  in  the  cabinet ; 
and,  where  he  was  sure  of  his  ground,  he  never  feared  to  act 
alone.  Faithful  among  the  faithless  to  the  doctrines  on  which 
his  youth  had  been  nourished,  he  stood,  the  Abdiel  of  cor- 
ruption, firm  and  square  against  this  unexpected  and  impos- 
ing manifestation  of  public  virtue.  When  the  question  of 
the  Shoreham  election  was  mooted,  Fox  had  thrown  a  perfect 
deluge  of  cold  water  upon  the  proposal  of  an  inquiry ;  and, 
now  that  the  story  had  come  to  the  surface  in  all  its  ugliness, 
he  breathed  fire  and  fury  against  the  advocates  of  a  policy  of 
severity.  While  his  colleagues  were  crying  with  one  voice 
for  the  exemplary  punishment  of  a  town  in  which  there  were 
not  as  many  righteous  burgesses  as  in  Sodom,1  he  could  see 
nothing  but  the  injustice  and  inconsequence  of  visiting  peo- 

1  Cavendish,  vol.  ii.  p.  310. 


352  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IX. 

pie  with  a  penal  disfranchisement  for  doing  once  in  seven 
years  that  which  was  done,  on  every  quarter-day,  by  two  out 
of  five  among  the  gentlemen  who  condemned  them.  He 
fought  the  measure  with  all  the  faculties  which  nature  had 
given  him,  and  with  all  the  weapons  which  the  usage  of  Par- 
liament, hardly  less  lavish  than  nature,  had  placed  at  his  dis- 
posal. He  would  have  divided  against  the  first  reading,  if 
he  could  have  induced  a  single  member  to  assist  him  as  teller. 
Hampered,  though  not  alarmed,  by  his  isolation,  he  utilized 
the  rare  and  brief  moments  which  he  spent  in  his  lodgings  in 
Piccadilly  to  coax  and  tease  Fitzpatrick  into  joining  forces 
with  him  in  opposition  to  the  bill.  The  two  kinsmen,  by 
their  combined  exertions,  succeeded  in  mustering  for  the  de- 
fence of  the  Christian  Club  a  small  band  wdiose  strength  grad- 
ually increased  from  six  to  fourteen,  and  from  fourteen  to 
eighteen.  But  time  was  against  Fox ;  and,  before  the  num- 
ber of  his  contingent  had  turned  the  score,  the  bill  had  passed 
into  a  law  which,  in  an  uncontrolled  burst  of  disappointment, 
he  pronounced  to  be  as  ridiculous  and  wicked  an  ordinance 
as  any  that  deformed  the  Statute-book. 

The  proof  which  the  fate  of  Shoreham  afforded  that  the 
Grenville  Act  was  an  effectual  engine  for  checking,  and,  in 
honest  and  willing  hands,  even  for  suppressing,  bribery  shar- 
pened the  zeal  of  Charles  Fox  against  a  reform  which  he  had 
never  loved.1   In  the  spring  of  1770,  when  Grenville's  scheme 

1  The  efficacy  of  Grenville's  plan  for  trying  disputed  elections  may  be 
tested  by  the  different  manner  in  which  it  was  regarded  by  a  Tory  who 
loved,  and  a  Tory  who  hated,  corruption.  Rigby  openly  said  in  Parlia- 
ment that  he  was  against  the  act,  because  it  stopped  treating ;  and  no- 
body objected  to  treating  except  a  candidate  who  wanted  to  save  his 
money.  Dr.  Johnson,  on  the  other  hand,  in  his  pamphlet  entitled  "  The 
Patriot,"  approved  the  act,  because  it  insured  that  the  man  who  possessed 
the  unbought  confidence  of  the  constituents  should  sit  as  their  member. 
"  A  disputed  election,"  he  wTote,  "  is  now  tried  with  the  same  scrupulous- 
ness and  solemnity  as  any  other  title.  A  candidate  that  has  deserved 
well  of  his  neighbors  may  now  be  certain  of  enjoying  the  effect  of  their 
approbation ;  and  the  elector  who  has  voted  honestly  for  known  merit 
may  be  certain  that  he  has  not  voted  in  vain."  "  I  never  neglect  business," 
said  the  political  jobber  in  Foote's  "Cozeners;"  "but  the  perpetuating 
this  Bribery  Act  has  thrown  such  a  rub  in  our  wav." 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  353 

first  saw  the  light,  the  young  politician  had  not  jet  worked 
his  way  upwards  to  the  doubtful  privilege  of  being  reported 
at  full  length ;  and  the  "  Parliamentary  History"  of  that  year 
contents  itself  with  recording  that  Mr.  Charles  Fox  did  his 
part  "  in  a  lively  academical  manner,  stating  and  taking  off  " 
the  arguments  which  were  adduced  in  favor  of  the  bill.  But 
in  the  next  session,  when  the  law  was  seven  months  old,  and 
its  author  dead,  Fox  had  already  attained  to  that  middle  stage 
of  political  notoriety  when  a  man's  graver  and  more  work- 
manlike speeches  are  still  liable  to  be  abridged  and  mangled, 
but  every  syllable  of  folly  and  impertinence  that  he  utters,  or 
that  is  uttered  about  him,  is  sure  of  being  immortalized.  Tow- 
ards the  end  of  November,  during  a  conversation  that  was  be- 
ing carried  on  across  the  House  about  a  disputed  election  in 
the  borough  of  Scarborough,  Fox,  while  arguing  against  the 
new  method  of  trying  petitions,  dropped  something  which  was 
capable  of  being  construed  as  disrespectful  to  the  memory  of 
the  statesman  by  whom  that  method  had  been  invented. 
Wedderburn,  who  just  then  was  eager  to  provide  himself 
with  a  colorable  pretext  for  the  treason  which  he  meditated 
by  posing  on  all  occasions  as  a  personal  follower  of  Grenville, 
emancipated  from  ties  of  party  by  his  master's  death,  saw 
his  opportunity,  and,  after  gratifying  the  Whigs  with  a  most 
eloquent  panegyric  on  his  own  lost  leader  and  their  regretted 
ally,  expressed  his  wonder  that  anybody  could  be  so  heartless 
as  to  cast  aspersions  on  such  a  reputation.  Fox,  who  had  no 
notion  of  lending  himself  as  a  lay-figure  to  be  exhibited  in 
any  attitude  that  suited  Wedderburn's  rhetorical  purposes, 
was  on  his  legs  before  the  other  was  down.  Stepping  at  once 
over  the  line  which  the  House  of  Commons  has  always  re- 
garded as  the  extreme  verge  of  the  permissible,  he  charged 
the  learned  gentleman  with  having  put  words  in  his  mouth 
which,  to  the  learned  gentleman's  own  knowledge,  had  never 
been  spoken.  Having  launched  his  defiance,  he  was  marching 
out  amidst  an  uproar  well-nigh  loud  enough  to  have  awakened 
Grenville  in  his  grave,  when  the  Speaker  bade  him  resume 
his  seat,  and  ordered  the  sergeant-at-arms  to  lock  the  doors. 
Welbore  Ellis,  who  had  the  formulas  applicable  to  all  possi- 

23 


354  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IX. 

ble  parliamentary  contingencies  in  his  head,  where  there  was 
plenty  of  room  to  keep  them  properly  sorted  and  ticketed, 
rose  on  behalf  of  the  House  to  require  an  assurance  from  both 
parties  that  the  affair  should  not  go  further.  Burke,  pained 
by  the  aspect  of  a  quarrel  over  a  name  which  had  always  com- 
manded respect,  and  of  late  had  inspired  something  not  dis- 
tantly resembling  affection,  in  one  of  the  most  feeling  and 
graceful  of  those  short  speeches  of  the  instant  which  are 
further  beyond  rivalry  or  imitation  even  than  his  precon- 
certed efforts,  urged  Fox  and  Wedderburn  to  reflect  that  con- 
sideration for  the  dead  ought  not  to  inflame,  but  to  heal,  the 
dissensions  of  the  living.  To  shake  hands  upon  the  union  of 
their  hearts  would,  he  reminded  them,  be  a  worthier  tribute 
to  the  memory  of  Grenville  than  the  show  of  reconciliation 
through  which,  whether  they  liked  it  or  not,  they  would  be 
forced  to  pass.  But  Wedderburn's  cue  was  to  play  surly  fidel- 
ity even  at  the  risk  of  overdoing  the  part ;  and  the  burden  of 
submission  therefore  fell  upon  his  opponent,  whose  heat  was 
real,  and  who,  in  the  opinion  of  almost  every  witness  present, 
had  been  more  sinned  against  than  sinning.  Fox  begged  par- 
don of  the  House  for  having  used  words  which  ought  to  have 
been  left  unsaid — an  apology  from  the  benefit  of  which  he 
pointedly  excepted  Wedderburn ;  and  then,  making  the  very 
unusual  and  uncongenial  effort  of  dropping  his  voice  till  it 
became  inaudible,  he  muttered  something  which  was  lost  even 
on  the  greedy  ears  around  him.  It  was  enough,  however,  for 
the  Speaker,  who  wisely  pretended  to  have  caught  the  sound 
of  the  conventional  sentence,  which  was  understood  to  signify 
that  the  dispute  would  not  be  transferred  to  that  rural  soli- 
tude behind  Bedford  House  where  Whigs  were  in  the  habit 
of  settling  their  differences.1 

It  was  not  very  long  before  Fox  gave  proof  that  he  was 
ready  to  maintain  his  words  with  sword  and  pistol  against 
anybody  whom  lie  was  allowed  to  fight.     His  next  escapade 

'That  was  the  spot  where,  just  two  months  afterwards,  Lord  Milton 
was  shot  through  the  body  by  Lord  Poulett,  Lord  John  Cavendish  act- 
ing as  one  of  the  seconds. 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  355 

arose,  as  usual,  out  of  his  devotion  to  the  royal  theory  of  gov- 
ernment— a  devotion  which,  most  happily  for  himself  and  for 
his  country,  was  appreciated  as  little  and  requited  as  ill  as  it 
deserved.  If,  at  an  age  when  his  character  was  still  malleable, 
his  premature  ambition  had  been  tempted  by  the  offer  of  the 
highest  place  in  the  State,  he  might  have  gone  down  to  the  ex- 
ecration of  posterity  as  the  Wentworth  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. But  strong  measures  were  more  to  G-eorge  the  Third's 
taste  than  strong  men  ;  and  the  result  of  the  most  determined 
step  which  the  king  took  in  the  track  of  the  Stuarts  indicated 
unmistakably  that  he  was  leaning  on  the  shoulder,  not  of  a 
Strafford,  but  of  a  Grafton. 

The  plan  of  Thorough  on  which  the  Court  was  bent  might 
have  succeeded  but  for  an  obstacle  which  had  saved  England 
from  more  than  one  such  plot  in  earlier  times,  and  which  re- 
mained as  a  second  line  of  defence  against  arbitrary  power 
after  the  country  had  grown  formidable  enough  to  save  itself. 
Unless  the  king  could  attract,  or  drive,  a  larger  portion  of  the 
nobility  into  the  ranks  of  his  adherents,  he  could  never  hope 
to  see  his  policy  durably  established.  Protests  disputing  the 
principles  on  which  that  policy  was  founded,  and  censuring 
the  acts  by  which  it  was  carried  into  effect,  were  signed,  when 
Rockingham  and  Chatham  had  both  had  a  hand  in  the  com- 
position, by  forty  of  the  most  respected  and  redoubted  names 
on  the  roll  of  Peers.  If  a  question  affecting  the  Constitution 
was  at  stake  in  the  House  of  Lords,  the  government,  after 
they  had  done  all  that  men  could  do,  and  promised  more  than 
ministers  had  to  give,  were  obliged  to  be  satisfied  if,  upon  a 
division,  they  could  just  beat  the  Opposition  by  two  to  one ; 
and  the  influence  of  a  great  peer  whose  heart  was  with  the 
people  more  than  doubled  that  of  one  whose  pocket  induced 
him  to  be  against  them.  Before  the  king  could  get  his  pur- 
poses fully  and  finally  accomplished,  his  partisans  would  have 
some  more  serious  work  to  do  than  the  mere  voting-down  of 
his  opponents  at  Westminster.  A  system  under  which  the 
nation  had  been  governed,  and  on  the  whole  admirably  gov- 
erned, during  four  reigns,  of  which  all  were  prosperous  and 
three  glorious,  could  not  be  overset  by  marching  a  file  of 


356  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

lords  of  the  bedchamber  and  pensioners  of  the  Civil  List  in 
and  out  of  a  glass  door.  As  soon  as  it  came  to  the  essential 
push,  all  the  rotten  boroughs  between  the  Needles  and  the 
Lizard  would  not  be  worth  a  single  great  county  with  an 
Earl  of  Fitzwilliam  or  a  Duke  of  Richmond  to  marshal  its 
army  of  freeholders.  The  spirit  of  the  contumacious  aristoc- 
racy must  be  broken,  and  a  notable  example  made ;  or  every- 
thing that  had  been  concocted  by  Bute  and  perpetrated  by 
Henry  Fox  would  have  been  done  in  vain.  It  was  in  the 
summer  of  1768  that  Grafton  consented  to  engage  in  a  proj- 
ect of  confiscation  and  proscription.  But  he  commenced  the 
undertaking  rashly,  and  pursued  it  timidly.  He  blundered 
alike  in  the  choice  of  the  accomplice  who  was  to  be  gratified 
with  the  booty,  and  of  the  victim  upon  whom  the  work  of 
spoliation  was  to  begin. 

The  Duke  of  Portland,  though  he  had  nothing  aggressive 
or  quarrelsome  in  his  nature,  wTas  as  dangerous  a  man  to  at- 
tack as  any  in  the  kingdom.  So  amiable  that  he  had  no  as- 
sociate who  was  not  an  attached  and  devoted  friend — and 
proud  with  the  pride  which  leads  its  possessor  habitually  to 
shrink  from  putting  himself  in  the  wrong,  or  from  venturing 
to  take  a  liberty  with  others — he  was  framed  to  go  through 
life  after  such  a  fashion  that,  unless  by  some  improbable 
chance  he  became  the  butt  of  calumny  or  the  object  of  perse- 
cution, the  world  was  never  likely  to  discover  for  itself  the 
high  rate  at  which  it  valued  him.  How  much,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  valued  Sir  James  Lowther,  the  world  knew  very  well, 
and  has  made  no  effort  to  conceal.  His  countrymen  hated 
him  so  heartily  and  with  so  much  cause  that  even  if  the 
worst  half  of  the  tales  which  they  related  and  printed  about 
him  are  to  be  accounted  as  mythical,  enough  remain,  authentic 
and  undisputed,  to  prove  that  in  boorishness,  caprice,  insolence, 
rapacity,  lawlessness,  and,  above  all,  in  the  practice  of  cruelty 
for  cruelty's  sake,  he  wTas  three  centuries  behind  the  least  esti- 
mable of  his  own  generation.1    When  a  man  passes  his  life  in 

1  An  admirable  full-length  portrait  of  the  Earl  of  Lonsdale,  as  he  ap- 
pears in  history  to  a  high-minded  man  of  his  own  rank,  may  be  seen  in 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  357 

evil-doing,  he  and  his  contemporaries  can  seldom  put  their 
finger  on  the  particular  ill -deed  which  in  after- times  will 
stand  in  judgment  against  him.  Sir  James  Lowther  little 
knew,  and,  if  he  had  known,  would  as  little  have  cared,  that 
more  than  fifty  years  after  his  death — when  the  groans  of  the 
inferiors  whom  he  oppressed,  and  the  murmurs  of  the  equals 
whom  he  affronted,  had  long  died  away — an  extraordinary 
chance  would  bring  to  light  a  story  which  has  settled  his 
character,  once  and  forever,  in  the  opinion  of  all  who  have  a 
spark  of  feeling  or  manliness  in  their  disposition.  The  mental 
tortures  and  humiliations  which,  as  Earl  of  Lonsdale,  he  made 
it  his  pastime  to  inflict  upon  a  dependent  broken  in  health, 
advanced  in  years,  and  rendered  defenceless  by  foibles  which 
had  been  viewed  with  indulgence  by  men  whose  shoe  the 
graceless  peer  was  not  worthy  to  buckle,  are  told  by  Boswell 
in  letters  rescued,  in  quite  recent  days,  from  the  oblivion  which 
will  befall  no  production  of  his  pen  that  has  once  passed 
through  the  hands  of  the  printer.  The  faithless  and  brutal 
patron  could  not  even  plead  that  he  had  a  right  to  despise  the 
client  whom  he  was  deluding  and  tormenting ;  for,  before 
Lord  Lonsdale  began  to  find  his  pleasure  in  feeding  Boswell 
with  false  hopes,  and  harassing  him  with  real  insults  and  in- 
juries, the  first  instalment  had  already  been  published  of  the 
book  which  will  be  read  by  millions  after  Lowther  Castle  has 
shared  the  lot  of  Kaglan  and  of  Kenilworth. 

Wordsworth,  in  a  fine  sonnet  addressed  to  that  "  majestic 
pile,"  speaks  of  it  as  founded  upon 

"  Charters  won  and  guarded  by  the  sword 
Of  ancient  honor."  1 

That  the  compliment  to  the  building  should  be  a  deserved 

Lord  Albemarle's  "  Memoirs  of  Kockingham,"  in  the  third  chapter  of  the 
second  volume. 

1  The  family  of  the  poet  were  among  the  innumerable  creditors  whom 
Lord  Lonsdale  ruined,  or  half  ruined,  by  withholding  from  them  their 
due,  and  defying  them  to  recover  it  at  law  from  a  litigant  as  wealthy  as 
he  was  unscrupulous.  The  young  Wordsworths,  left  fatherless  and  al- 
most penniless,  "  fought  life's  battle  as  well  as  they  could  for  several 
years,"  until  the  second  earl  repaired  the  injustice  of  his  predecessor. 


358  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

one  was  certainly  not  the  desire  or  the  intention  of  its  most 
noted  occupant.  Never,  since  the  Star-chamber  ceased  its 
sittings,  has  there  occurred  a  ruder  and  more  dangerous  vio- 
lation of  the  safeguards  which  protect  the  existence  of  private 
property  than  was  attempted  by  Grafton  and  his  colleagues  at 
the  instance  and  for  the  profit  of  Sir  James  Lowther.  Not 
content  with  a  fortune  which,  in  Wal pole's  words,  would  have 
enabled  him  to  hire  the  Dukes  of  Marlborough  and  Bedford 
as  led  captains  —  not  content  with  a  local  ascendency  that 
placed  at  his  beck  and  nod  the  suffrages  of  a  region  in  which 
(as  he  loved  to  hear  from  his  flatterers)  he  was  absolute  mas- 
ter of  the  land,  the  water,  and  the  fire ' — he  was  ever  on  the 
watch  for  an  opportunity  to  rob  his  neighbor  of  territorial 
possessions  and  political  influence.  In  Cockermouth  and  Ap- 
pleby and  Whitehaven,  his  presence  was  terror  and  his  orders 
were  law;  but  in  the  county  of  Cumberland  and  the  city  of 
Carlisle  his  dictation  wras  resisted,  and  successfully  resisted, 
by  a  population  emboldened  by  the  countenance  of  a  poten- 
tate as  formidable  as  himself.  The  leadership  of  the  House 
of  Bentinck  was  acknowledged  far  and  wide  through  the 
Northwest  of  England,  where  large  tracts  of  Crown  property 
had  been  made  over  to  its  founder  by  William  the  Third  as  a 
recompense  for  the  services  and  the  affection  of  a  lifetime. 
The  title  of  the  Portlands  to  the  lands  and  royalties  and 
manors  which  they  assumed  as  a  consequence  of  these  grants 
had  for  seventy  years  never  been  mistrusted  by  themselves  or 
contested  by  others.  Among  the  acquisitions  which  the  fam- 
ily owed  to  royal  gratitude  and  munificence  was  the  Forest 
of  Inglewood,  a  district  rich  in  natural  products,  and,  what 
was  more  to  the  purpose  on  the  eve  of  a  general  election, 


1  "  E'en  by  the  elements  his  power  confessed, 

Of  mines  and  boroughs  Lonsdale  stands  possessed ; 

And  one  sad  servitude  alike  denotes 

The  slave  that  labors  and  the  slave  that  votes." 

Rosciad,  Part  ii.,  No.  5. 
"  We  all  know,"  wrote  Boswell,  "  what  he  can  do ;  he  upon  whom  the 
thousands  of  Whitehaven  depend  for  three  of  the  elements." 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  359 

swarming  with  small  freeholders.  The  duke,  at  the  period 
of  his  marriage,  had  included  in  his  wife's  settlements  his  in- 
terest in  the  forest — an  interest  which,  in  the  eyes  of  the  em- 
inent conveyancers  whom  he  employed,  belonged  to  him  and 
his,  as  Dunster  Castle  belonged  to  the  Luttrells,  or  St.  Mi- 
chael's Mount  to  the  St.  Aubyns.  It  is  not  therefore  difficult 
to  imagine  the  consternation  with  which,  in  September,  1767, 
he  was  informed  that,  in  the  previous  July,  Sir  James  Low- 
ther  had  presented  a  memorial  to  the  Lords  of  the  Treasury, 
stating  that  the  Forest  of  Inglewood  and  the  soccage  of  the 
Castle  of  Carlisle  had  been  long  withheld  from  the  Crowm 
without  the  Crown's  receiving  from  them  any  benefit,  and 
praying  a  lease  of  them  for  his  own  life  and  two  others  on 
such  terms  as  should  appear  fitting  to  their  lordships. 

The  duke  had  reason  to  be  uneasy ;  for  the  petition,  on  the 
face  of  it,  was  such  as  never  would  have  been  presented  ex- 
cept in  a  case  where  the  petitioner  had  assured  his  ground 
beforehand.  Son-in-law  to  Bute,  and  in  Parliament  the  ser- 
geant of  a  whole  squad  of  members  who  wheeled  to  right  or 
left  at  his  bidding,  Lowther  found  little  difficulty  either  with 
the  Crown  or  the  Treasury.  The  peer  was  trifled  with,  blind- 
ed, thwarted  at  every  turn,  and  left  out  in  the  dark  and  the 
cold ;  while  the  baronet  was  kept  promptly  and  minutely  in- 
formed of  the  silent  and  rapid  progress  which  the  business 
made  under  the  fostering  care  of  officials  who  regarded  his 
interests  as  their  own.  Relying  on  a  promise  that  no  deci- 
sion should  be  taken  until  both  sides  had  been  fully  and  fairly 
heard,  the  duke's  lawyers  were  still  preparing  his  title — and 
the  duke's  agent,  in  pursuit  of  leave  to  inspect  the  records, 
was  still  travelling  on  a  fool's  errand  from  the  Treasury  to 
the  Crown-office,  and  from  the  Crown-office  back  to  the  Treas- 
ury— when  a  letter  from  Whitehall  arrived  at  Welbeck  Ab- 
bey, informing  the  owner  of  the  manor  of  Inglewood  that  his 
property  had  been  granted  to  Sir  James  Lowther  in  consider- 
ation of  a  quit  -  rent  of  thirteen  and  fourpence  per  annum. 
The  misfortune  wTas  heavy,  and  galling  out  of  proportion  to 
its  weight ;  but,  as  far  as  sympathy  could  lighten  it,  the  suf- 
ferer had  no  reason  to  complain.     There  was  a  cry  of  shame 


360  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

throughout  the  kingdom.  The  inhabitants  of  the  ceded  dis- 
tricts, who  had  been  accustomed  thankfully  to  contrast  their 
own  lot  with  that  of  their  luckless  neighbors,  foresaw  the 
treatment  which  a  landlord  wxho  had  stunted  and  impover- 
ished boroughs  that  were  the  ancient  appanages  of  his  house, 
for  the  sake  of  retaining  his  political  predominance  unques- 
tioned and  undiminished,  might  be  expected  to  deal  out  to 
those  whom  he  and  his  electioneering  agents  would  regard  as 
a  population  of  subjugated  aliens.  Their  dismay  was  shared 
by  people  wTho  could  make  their  apprehension  and  resentment 
felt  much  more  effectively  than  a  community  of  turf-diggers 
and  small  graziers  whose  hard  lives  were  led  two  hundred 
miles  away  from  the  door  of  the  Crown-office.  The  most  pow- 
erful noblemen  in  England,  and  still  more  in  Ireland,  were 
conscious  that  those  vast  estates  which  in  any  European  coun- 
try but  their  own  would  have  made  them  princes  could  not 
fail  to  melt  away  like  water  if  the  obsolete  doctrine  of  "  Nul- 
lum tempus  occurrit  regi"  (in  conformity  with  which  the 
Duke  of  Portland  had  been  evicted)  was  furbished  up  and 
re-established  as  the  law  of  the  land.  And  if  they  had  been 
insensible  to  their  danger,  there  was  one  awake  and  stirring 
who  would  not  have  allowed  them  to  sleep.  Writing  under 
the  signature  of  "  Mnemon,"  Junius  fell  tooth  and  nail  on  the 
obnoxious  maxim.  He  translated  it,  with  characteristic  am- 
plification of  phrase,  into  a  shape  in  which  it  looked  even 
more  alarming  than  in  Latin  ;*  he  proclaimed,  in  all  the  maj- 
esty of  capital  letters,  that  its  revival  had  given  a  shock  to  the 
whole  landed  property  of  England ;  and  he  showed  with  un- 
answerable logic  that,  when  once  its  authority  was  recognized 
in  the  courts  of  justice,  no  ministry,  however  enlightened  and 
patriotic,  could  restrain  the  Crown  from  existing  in  a  state  of 
"  unremitting  and  immortal  litigation  "  with#those  of  its  sub- 
jects who  were  worth  the  robbing.2 

1  "  The  maxim  of  '  Nullum  tempus  occurrit  regi,'  '  that  no  length  of 
continuance,  or  good  faith  of  possession,  is  available  against  a  claim  of 
the  Crown,'  has  long  been  the  opprobrium  of  prerogative  and  the  dis- 
grace of  our  law." 

3  Mnemon's  letter  of  the  fourth  of  March,  1768,  replete  with  matter, 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  361 

The  ministers  set  their  staff  of  scribes  to  answer  Mnemon ; 
but  they  had  better  have  left  it  alone.  On  a  question  that 
touched  both  law  and  administration,  the  Fleet  parsons,  who 
wrote  for  the  newspapers  under  the  orders  of  Sandwich,  in 
the  hope  that  he  might  think  of  them  the  next  time  that  a 
small  Crown  living  went  a-begging  round  the  cabinet,  had 
no  chance  against  a  publicist  deeply  and  carefully  read  in 
jurisprudence,  and  trained  by  a  varied  course  of  service,  at 
home  and  abroad,  in  four  leading  departments  of  the  State. 
The  most  promising  idea  which  Grub  Street  could  muster 
was  to  ring  the  changes  upon  the  origin  of  the  Duke  of  Port- 
land's wealth,  and  urge  the  Commons  of  England  to  imitate 
the  spirit  which  their  predecessors  of  1695  displayed  in  re- 
proving and  moderating  the  prodigality  with  which  a  Dutch 
king  rewarded  his  imported  favorites.  This  invitation  to 
trace  to  its  source  the  stream  of  fortune  which  had  enriched 
a  noble  family  was  anything  but  attractive  in  the  eyes  of 
peers  and  great  squires  whose  ancestors  and  ancestresses  had 
acquired  land  and  goods  by  the  pillage  of  the  Church  and  the 
poor ;  by  the  attainder  of  unhappy  patriots  who  had  fought 
on  what  was  now  regarded  as  the  right  side  in  some  historical 
quarrel ;  or  by  personal  services,  not  so  reputable  as  those  of 
Bentinck,  rendered  only  too  freely  to  monarchs  of  merrier,  if 
less  glorious,  memory  than  the  stern  Deliverer.  Even  polit- 
ical rancor  was  driven  to  confess  that  there  were  subjects  too 
sacred  for  a  parliamentary  inquiry  ;  and  Sir  George  Savile  had 
the  secret  or  expressed  good  wishes  of  both  parties  with  him 
when,  in  February,  1768,  he  rose  to  introduce  a  bill  which 
provided  that  the  uninterrupted  enjoyment  for  sixty  years 
of  an  estate  derived  from  the  Crown  should  bar  the  Crown 
from  reclaiming  its  gift  under  pretence  of  any  flaw  in  the 
grant,  or  other  defect  of  title.  By  desperate  exertions  the 
government  contrived  to  postpone  the  question  till  the  gen- 


clear  in  statement,  and  devoid  of  exaggeration,  has  the  precise  qualities 
in  which  Junius,  who  took  the  field  ten  months  later,  was  defective  from 
the  first ;  and  the  gradual  but  total  disappearance  of  which  eventually 
destroyed  his  style  and  his  influence. 


362  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

eral  election  had  made  Sir  James  Lowther  member  for  Cum- 
berland. But  the  debate  showed  that  the  feeling  was  with 
Savile,  and  he  so  nearly  succeeded  in  securing  the  numbers 
that  he  wras  only  beaten  by  twenty  in  a  full  House.  Portland 
thenceforward  awaited  the  issue  with  a  confidence  which 
proved  to  be  well-grounded ;  for  the  new  Parliament,  in  its 
first  working  session,  unseated  Lowther  for  the  county,  and 
placed  Savile's  measure  among  the  statutes,  by  majorities 
which  the  ministry  had  not  the  cash  to  bribe  or  the  courage 
to  intimidate.1 

But  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  freeholders  of  Cum- 
berland had  not  yet  heard  the  last  of  Sir  James  Lowther. 
Savile  had  drawn  his  bill  with  a  view  to  supplement  and 
amend  a  law  of  James  the  First,  popularly  known  as  the 
Quieting  Act,  which  had  been  passed  to  protect  the  holders 
of  property  from  the  machinations  of  professional  informers 
who  lived  by  hunting  up  flaws  in  Crown  grants  of  old  stand- 
ing, and  then  using  their  influence  at  Court  to  dispossess  and 
supplant  the  rightful  owner.  Numerous  enough  formerly  to 
have  a  name  to  themselves,  these  gentry  were  known  to  our 
ancestors,  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century,  by 
the  appellation  of  "  concealers,"  and  were  hated  as  the  mo- 
nopolists were  hated  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  as  the  mon- 
ey-lender is  now  hated  by  the  peasant  of  British  India.2  The 
most  odious,  and  for  a  time  the  most  thriving,  of  his  class  was 
Sir  Giles  Mompesson,  against  whom  the  first  Quieting  Act 
had  been  expressly  devised,  and  who  stood  to  Massinger  for 

1  Savile's  Nullum  Tempus  Bill  was  carried  by  205  to  124,  and  the  Cum- 
berland election  was  overset  by  247  to  95. 

2  Sir  Edward  Coke,  who  was  charged  with  the  conduct  of  the  Quieting 
Bill  in  the  Parliament  of  1620,  remarked  that  a  concealer  "  was  ever  a 
beggar  before  he  died."  Five  sorts  of  men,  he  said,  in  his  observation, 
never  prospered — alchemists,  monopolists,  depopulators,  concealers,  and 
promoters.  The  extent  of  the  change  which  has  been  wrought  in  the 
constitution  of  society  between  those  days  and  ours  is  strikingly  illus- 
trated by  the  reflection  that  four  among  these  five  classes  have  disap- 
peared, and  of  the  fifth  nothing  remains  but  a  name  which  now  has  come 
to  designate  another  branch  of  industry. 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  363 

as  powerfully  over-painted  a  villain  as  ever  muted  across  the 
English  stage.  Among  those  who  lived  to  shudder  at  Ed- 
mund Kean  in  the  most  harrowing  of  his  parts,  there  must 
have  been  some  who  remembered  that,  in  their  own  younger 
days,  they  too  had  known  a  Sir  Giles  Overreach  whose  deeds 
emulated  those  of  the  knight  in  the  play,  though  he  made 
less  noise  about  them.  The  hero  of  the  second  Quieting  Bill 
seemed  to  sleep  on  thorns  until  he  had  appropriated  to  him- 
self the  character  of  one  who 

"  Frights  men  out  of  their  estates, 
And  breaks  through  law-nets,  made  to  curb  ill  men, 
As  they  were  cobwebs." 

A  clause  in  Savile's  Act  had  provided  that  the  grantees  of  the 
Crown  should  have  a  twelvemonth  within  which  to  prosecute 
their  claims.  The  motive  with  which  this  proviso  had  been 
inserted  was  variously  interpreted ;  but  no  one  even  affected 
to  believe  that  Parliamentvdeliberately  intended  a  measure, 
specially  framed  for  the  protection  of  an  individual  land-owner 
and  a  particular  district,  to  be  so  construed  as  to  subject  that 
very  land-owner  and  that  very  district  to  the  annoyance  and 
expense  of  an  appeal  to  the  chances  of  the  law.  Sir  James 
Lowther,  however,  did  not  concern  himself  with  the  inten- 
tions of  Parliament.  Making  diligent  use  of  what  he  regard- 
ed  as  his  year  of  grace,  he  carried  his  dispute  with  the  Duke 
of  Portland  into  the  Court  of  Exchequer,  and,  on  one  and  the 
same  day,  served  writs  of  ejectment  upon  four  hundred  free- 
holders of  the  Forest  of  Ingle  wood.  There  was  confusion 
and  anxiety  in  all  corners  of  Cumberland,  where  every  family 
owned  some  member  or  connection  whom  a  stroke  as  unex- 
pected as  an  earthquake  had  rendered  liable  to  pass  the  rest 
of  his  days  in  a  series  of  lawsuits,  the  first  six  months  of  which 
would  more  than  beggar  him.  Fifteen  bills  in  equity,  and 
two  hundred  and  twenty-five  actions  at  common -law,  were 
simultaneously  in  course  of  prosecution  against  men  whose 
ideas  of  litigation  had  hitherto  never  risen  above  a  contro- 
versy with  the  parson  about  the  tenth  sack  of  peat,  or  a  wran- 
gle with  a  brother-commoner  over  the  parentage  of  a  gosling. 


364  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IX. 

On  the  eleventh  of  February,  1771,  Sir  William  Meredith 
brought  forward  a  bill  for  striking  the  clause  under  which 
these  lamentable  complications  had  arisen  from  the  pages  of 
Savile's  Act.  The  act  had  found  its  warmest  admirer  in  Ed- 
mund Burke,  always,  and  in  every  succcessive  phase  of  his 
political  career,  a  sturdy  champion  of  the  rights  of  property.1 
He  now  adjured  Parliament,  as  it  valued  its  own  consisten- 
cy, not  to  disappoint  one  section  of  the  community  by  ex- 
cluding it  from  the  operation  of  a  healing  law  the  benefits  of 
which  had  been  supposed  to  be  universal.  "The  question 
is"  (so  he  put  the  case),  "  whether  or  no  you  will  restore  the 
county  of  Cumberland  to  the  same  degree  of  peace,  order, 
and  security  to  which  you  have  restored  the  rest  of  the  king- 
dom." Yielding  a  point  under  pressure  of  disapprobation  too 
general  and  pronounced  even  for  him  to  despise,  Sir  James 
Lowther  commissioned  his  friends  to  inform  the  House  that 
he  should  prosecute  none  of  his  suits  except  that  against  the 
Duke  of  Portland;  but  by  seeking  to  render  his  position  less 
invidious,  he  had  made  it  more  illogical  than  ever.  It  was 
understood  that  the  Duke  had  been  willing  to  bargain  for  the 
safety  of  his  less  wealthy  neighbors  by  consenting  that  he 
himself  should  be  left,  in  solitary  peril,  outside  the  shelter  of 
the  act.  "  I  will  sacrifice  myself  "  (such  was  stated  to  be  his 
language),  "  provided  that  my  insecurity  makes  every  other 

1  In  1780,  during  the  most  celebrated,  if  not  the  finest,  speech  that  a 
member  ever  made  to  his  constituents,  Burke  placed  Savile's  Act,  for  the 
limitation  of  the  claims  of  the  Crown  upon  landed  estates,  on  a  level  in 
importance  with  his  act  for  the  relief  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  and  pro- 
nounced that  those  were  the  two  measures  which  would  carry  to  pos- 
terity the  most  respected  name  in  the  politics  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. And  as  the  member  for  Bristol  thought  then,  so  the  member  for 
Malton  thought  to  the  last.  Burke  became  a  Tory,  not  because  he  loved 
arbitrary  power,  but  because  he  feared  it  so  much  that  he  discerned  signs 
of  it  (as  Whigs  believe)  in  a  wrong  quarter.  "  Burke,"  said  Grattan, 
"  could  not  sleep  on  his  pillow  unless  he  thought  that  the  king  had  a 
right  to  take  it  from  under  him ;"  but  the  epigram  was  spoken  in  an 
idle  moment,  to  amuse  and  dazzle  a  young  man  whom  its  author  did 
not  credit  with  the  fatal  memory  which  was  one  of  the  most  formidable 
gifts  even  of  Samuel  Rogers. 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  365 

man  in  England  secure ;"  but  his  friends  were  determined 
that,  if  their  efforts  could  prevent  it,  he  should  not  be  allowed 
to  suffer  by  his  chivalry.  Sir  William  Meredith  defied  the 
government  to  produce  a  single  argument  for  refusing  to  the 
one  an  immunity  from  litigation  which  was  extended  to  the 
many,  except  that  the  one  was  rich,  while  the  many  were 
poor ;  and,  with  the  fervor  which  a  just  cause  never  failed  to 
arouse  in  him,  he  entreated  his  brother -members  to  reflect 
whither  that  argument  would  lead  them.  The  principle  of 
limitation,  on  which  the  Quieting  Act  was  founded,  seldom 
(he  declared)  affected  the  interests  of  the  poor ;  but  it  was  of 
all  legal  doctrines  the  most  essential  for  the  security  of  the 
rich,  unless  they  were  to  be  rich  no  longer.  It  was  the  great 
man  whose  influence  made  him  formidable  to  the  Crown ;  it 
was  the  great  man  whose  opulence  made  him  a  mark  for  the 
informer ;  and  to  deny  the  great,  who  needed  it,  a  safeguard 
which  was  granted  to  the  small,  who  could  do  without  it,  was 
to  sanction  a  pregnant  injustice  under  the  specious  cloak  of 
popularity.  Unless  ministers  could  find  some  less  dangerous 
ground  on  which  to  meet  him,  they  had  nothing  for  it  but  to 
support  his  bill. 

It  was  never  safe  to  challenge  the  Treasury  bench  for  a 
reason,  with  regard  to  any  question  which  filled  a  space  in  the 
mind  of  Charles  Fox.  Reasons,  in  that  luxuriant  soil,  were 
plentiful  as  blackberries,  and  changed  their  color  at  least  as 
often.  Not  when  in  after-days  he  was  pleading  in  defence 
of  the  poor  remnants  of  freedom  which  had  survived  the  first 
fury  of  the  anti-Jacobin  reaction — not  when  he  was  deprecat- 
ing the  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  or  denouncing 
that  elaborate  net-work  of  repressive  legislation  which  made 
it  more  dangerous  for  an  Englishman  to  take  a  citizen's  part 
in  public  affairs  than  to  turn  coiner  or  sheep-stealer — did  he 
speak  in  a  higher  strain  of  feeling,  or  rest  his  cause  upon 
more  solid  and  time-honored  considerations  of  natural  equity 
and  written  law,  than  now  when  he  was  urging  Parliament  to 
except  an  individual,  whose  only  crime  was  that  he  belonged 
to  one  political  party  instead  of  to  another,  from  the  protec- 
tion of  a  statute  which  protected  every  other  property-holder 


366  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

in  the  country.  The  discussion,  in  its  earlier  phase,  had  gone 
strongly  against  Lowther.  His  defence  had  been  undertaken 
by  Sir  William  Bagot,  a  rustic  orator,  who  first  made  himself 
ridiculous  by  invoking  against  Meredith's  bill  the  powers  of 
earth,  of  heaven,  and  of  hell ;  and  who  then  blundered  into 
an  unpardonable  breach  of  order  in  the  shape  of  an  appeal  to 
the  Speaker  to  assist  the  deliberations  of  the  House  by  an  ex- 
pression of  his  personal  opinion.  Burke  and  Dunning  had 
made  infinite  fun  of  the  advocate,  and  Savile  had  torn  the 
case  to  shreds,  when  Fox  came  forward  in  the  character  of  a 
plain  man  who  had  nothing  new  or  valuable  to  say,  but  whose 
sense  of  right  and  wrong  would  not  allow  him  to  give  that 
silent  vote  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  as  little  capable 
pf  giving  as  he  was  likely  to  let  the  box  pass  him  at  Almack's 
without  trying  a  throw.  Absolutely  astonished  (he  said)  by  a 
proposal  which  in  appearance  was  totally  repugnant  to  every 
principle  of  law  and  liberty,  he  had  waited  patiently,  anxious- 
ly, almost  hopefully,  in  the  expectation  of  hearing  some  satis- 
factory justification  for  a  bill  which  had  statesmen  of  repute 
and  integrity  among  its  patrons.  There  must  (he  had  felt 
sure)  have  been  something  in  it  which  he  did  not  understand  ; 
something  which  reconciled  the  measure  with  the  acknowl- 
edged demands  of  justice.  But  when  the  debate  ran  its 
course,  and  the  matter  gradually  emerged,  from  beneath  a 
cloud  of  talk,  in  all  its  naked  and  genuine  deformity,  as  he 
had  at  first  been  struck  dumb  with  astonishment,  so  now  he 
was  impelled  to  speech  by  horror  and  indignation.  "  Who, 
sir,"  he  cried,  "  that  has  a  reverence  for  the  law,  a  sense  of  lib- 
erty, or  a  regard  for  the  Constitution  can  listen  unmoved  to 
a  proposition  which  at  one  blow  destroys  our  Constitution,  our 
liberty,  and  our  laws?  It  is  under  the  law  that  every  man 
holds  his  property ;  and  I  firmly  believe  that  no  one  in  exist- 
ence has  a  better  title  to  anything  which  he  possesses  than 
the  title  to  Inglewood  which  the  Crown  has  vested  in  Sir 
James  Lowther.  If  that  title  is  taken  away  by  act  of  Parlia- 
ment, why  not  bring  in  an  act  to  take  away  any  other  part  of 
his  estate?  Why  not  the  estate  of  any  landlord  in  the  king- 
dom ?     If  bills  for  the  forcible  transfer  of  property  are  thus 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  367 

to  pass,  there  can  be  nothing  sacred,  nothing  secure  among  us. 
Were  I  a  party  to  such  a  transaction,  my  conscience  would 
never  suffer  me  to  be  at  rest ;  and  the  same  conscience  which 
dictates  my  present  opposition  shall  carry  me  on  to  oppose 
the  bill  in  every  step  and  through  every  stage.  I  wish  that 
gentlemen  who  brought  in  the  measure  would,  for  their  hon- 
or's sake,  withdraw  it.  But  if  it  succeeds  here,  it  cannot  suc- 
ceed elsewhere ;  and  I  pray  and  trust  that  we  may  not  suffer 
the  scandal  of  this  bill  to  lie  at  our  doors,  and  surrender  the 
credit  of  rejecting  it  to  the  other  House  of  Parliament." ' 

St.  Stephen's  had  never  seen,  and  in  all  likelihood  will  nev- 
er see  again,  such  perversity  of  opinion  combined  with  such 
acuteness  of  intellect  and  intensity  of  conviction.  The  fame 
of  the  performance  outside  the  House  of  Commons  betrayed 
Horace  Walpole,  who  was  not  given  to  overrate  his  juniors, 
into  confessing  that  Charles  Fox  was  "the  phenomenon  of 
the  age."  A  young  gentleman  who  owned  so  curious  a  con- 
science, and  was  in  the  habit  of  appealing  to  it  with  such 
transcendent  effect,  was  worth  even  his  weight  in  bank-bills 
and  lottery-tickets  to  a  cabinet  which  could  buy  everything 
except  earnestness  and  sincerity.  The  immediate  result  of  a 
speech  which  supplied  the  ministerialists  with  the  most  ex- 
alted motives  for  continuing  a  course  which  an  hour  before 
they  had  been  heartily  ashamed  of  having  adopted  was  to 
diminish  Meredith's  majority  by  a  half ;  and,  a  week  after- 
wards, when  the  time  came  for  the  bill  to  be  committed,  Fox 
effectually  redeemed  his  pledge  of  fighting  every  inch  of 
ground  against  a  measure  which  (as  he  cleverly  termed  it) 
menaced  the  first  principles  of  good  government  by  confound- 
ing the  legislative  and  judicial  functions.  From  the  moment 
that  he  took  the  affair  in  hand,  all  went  well  for  Lowther. 

1  This  speech,  the  first  which  Fox  made  on  the  subject,  appears  in  the 
"Parliamentary  History"  in  the  debate  of  February  the  twenty-seventh; 
but  it  is  the  same  as  that  which  Cavendish  reports  as  having  been  deliver- 
ed on  the  twentieth.  Cavendish,  as  always,  is  here  clearly  in  the  right ; 
for,  when  the  twenty-seventh  of  February  came,  and  the  motion  that  the 
Speaker  should  leave  the  chair  was  opposed  by  the  friends  of  Lowther, 
Fox  began  by  a  distinct  allusion  to  his  own  speech  of  the  previous  week. 


368  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

By  his  audacious  logic,  and  his  inborn  and  hereditary  skill  in 
parliamentary  management,  Fox  turned  votes  enough  to  de- 
feat the  motion  that  the  Speaker  should  leave  the  chair ;  and 
there  the  matter  would  have  ended  but  for  the  portentous 
discovery  that  a  stranger  had  been  counted  in  the  division. 
The  man,  when  brought  to  the  bar,  was  recognized  as  a  busy- 
body who  haunted  the  lobby,  and  who  had  been  rash  enough 
to  pursue  his  victims  into  a  place  where  they  had  him  at  a 
disadvantage.  Gathering  courage  from  numbers,  the  members 
whose  buttons  he  had  held,  and  into  whose  pockets  he  had 
forced  his  documents,  revenged  themselves  by  disowning  his 
acquaintance,  and  even  by  throwing  suspicions  on  his  identity. 
One  suggested  that  he  might  be  a  conspirator.  Another,  with 
refined  malice,  professed  to  believe  that  he  was  a  reporter. 
A  third  went,  even  further,  and  charged  Sir  William  Bagot 
to  observe  what  came  of  country  gentlemen  venturing  to  raise 
the  devil.  Burke,  chafing  under  the  sudden  and,  to  those 
who  had  left  Charles  Fox  out  of  their  calculations,  quite  inex- 
plicable, reverse  which  had  befallen  his  party,  forgot  himself 
for  a  moment,  and,  as  his  nature  was,  showed  that  he  had  for- 
gotten himself  by  becoming  unreasonably  and  unseasonably 
solemn.  "I  do,"  he  said,  "in  my  soul  suspect  some  malprac- 
tice in  the  coming-in  of  the  man."  This  exaggeration  of  em- 
phasis, which  belonged  to  the  nationality  of  the  speaker  as 
much  as  ever  did  Sheil's  rhapsodies  or  O'ConnelPs  boisterous- 
ness,  called  forth  a  smile  on  the  countenance  of  Charles  Fox, 
who  was  thereupon  told  that  a  gentleman  capable  of  laugh- 
ing at  such  a  sentiment  would  make  a  laugh  out  of  anything. 
The  challenge,  given  in  a  flash  of  excusable  petulance,  was 
not  accepted.  Fox  already  admired  Burke  to  the  utmost  limits 
of  his  almost  immeasurable  deserts.  He  treasured  what  he 
had  been  permitted  to  obtain  of  the  great  orator's  confidence, 
and  was  ever  ready  to  repay  it  with  the  whole  of  his  own. 
While  still  an  aspirant  for  office,  he  had  not  scrupled  freely 
to  tell  Burke  his  mind  about  the  ministers  from  whom  alone 
he  could  hope  for  preferment.1     He  had  introduced  him  into 

1  "  Charles  Fox  called  to  see  me,"  wrote  Burke,  in  July,  1769.     "  He 
talks  of  the  Beclfords  in  his  old  strain  of  dislike." 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  369 

his  family  with  that  air  of  triumphant  complacency  which  a 
generous  young  man  always  throws  into  the  business  of  bring- 
ing together  the  friend  of  whom  he  is  proud  and  the  relatives 
whom  he  loves  ;  and  he  had  been  not  a  little  perturbed  when 
Lord  Holland  treated  the  claims  of  his  hero  with  the  scepti- 
cism which  the  veterans  of  one  generation  are  apt  to  entertain 
for  the  celebrities  of  another.1  Burke  gratefully  acknowledged 
that,  as  long  as  Charles  Fox  was  in  the  government,  he  him- 
self would  never  be  without  some  one  able  and  willing  to 
oblige  him  with  those  services  which  the  leaders  of  the  party 
that  was  in  were  less  ready  then  than  now  to  do  for  a  mem- 
ber of  the  party  that  was  out.2  And  on  the  present  occasion, 
when  Fox  perceived  that  Burke  was  angry,  he  hastened  to 
propitiate  him  with  an  explanation  of  a  very  different  sort 
from  that  which  he  had  lately  thought  good  enough  for  Wed- 
derburn.  The  courteous  pleasantry  of  his  reply  disarmed  his 
adversary,  and  the  dispute  dropped — the  last  dispute  which 
arose  between  men  who  were  too  great  to  be  rivals  until  the 
day  when,  over  a  subject  of  contention  that  was  no  laughing 
matter,  the  friendship  of  five-and-twenty  years  was  broken. 
A  second  division  convinced  the  most  incredulous  among  the 
Whigs  that  they  were  honestly  as  well  as  thoroughly  beaten ; 
and  Fox,  who  had  talked  the  House  of  Commons  fairly  round 
the  compass,  was  entitled  to  plume  himself  upon  a  feat  which 
any  one  under  a  prime-minister  may  be  proud  to  have  ac- 
complished twice  in  the  longest  lifetime. 

But  though  Meredith  lost  his  bill,  Sir  James  Lowther  did 
not  gain  his  cause.     When,  after  the  ensuing  long  vacation, 


1  Lord  Holland  remarked  that  he  supposed  Burke  was  a  wonderful 
man,  but  that  he  did  not  like  those  clever  fellows  who  could  not  say  a 
plain  "yes"  or  "no"  to  any  question  you  asked  them. 

3  "  I  hear,"  wrote  Burke,  in  November,  1772,  "that  Charles  Fox's  speedy 
coming  into  the  Treasury  is  expected.  This  event  would  not,  I  hope, 
prove  sinister  to  a  very  just  claim,  and  would  prevent  much  oppression 
to  individuals,  and,  I  am  quite  certain,  a  very  considerable  loss  to  the 
public."  The  claim  was  on  the  part  of  Burke's  brother  to  some  land 
which  he  had  purchased  in  Grenada,  the  title  to  which  was  disputed  by 
the  Crown. 

24 


370  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

his  case  came  on  for  trial,  the  lease  under  which  the  Crown 
had  granted  him  the  Forest  of  Inglewood  wTas  found  to  be 
defective  in  an  essential  particular;  and  he  was  non-suited  ac- 
cordingly. But  from  February  to  November — as  long  as  the 
most  popular  nobleman  in  England  was  exposed  without  de- 
fence to  all  the  evil  consequences  which  might  result  to  him 
from  the  greed  of  his  rival  and  the  spleen  of  his  sovereign — 
public  indignation  wTas  hot  against  the  young  politician  who 
had  stood  between  the  Duke  of  Portland  and  safety.  The 
great  writer  who  had  constituted  himself  the  censor  of  poli- 
tics had  up  to  this  period  shown  his  gratitude  towards  his 
early  patron,  and  added  one  more  to  the  innumerable  evi- 
dences of  his  personalit}7,  by  the  marked  forbearance  which 
die  exhibited  towards  the  favorite  son  of  Lord  Holland.  Ju- 
nius, and  the  cohort  of  Romans  and  Greeks  who  were  Junius 
under  many  names,  had  contrived  to  fight  Wilkes's  battle  with- 
out lifting  their  spear  against  the  most  active  of  his  enemies. 
An  occasional  hint  that  the  Black  Boy  would  do  well  to 
cleanse  his  ways,  and  look  to  his  goings  in  his  path,  was  the 
deepest  scratch  from  that  keen  and  ruthless  weapon  beneath 
which  Fox  had  hitherto  smarted.  But  soon  after  the  Nullum 
Tempus  Bill  had  been  rejected,  Lord  North  was  addressed  in 
the  Public  Advertiser  by  a  correspondent  who  signed  himself 
"  Ulysses ;"  and  who,  while  blaming  the  prime-minister  almost 
beyond  his  due,  showed  no  mercy  whatever  to  his  more  guilty 
subordinate.  "  It  was  reserved,"  said  the  writer,  "  for  Mr. 
Charles  Fox,  at  the  opening  of  his  life,  to  prove  how  easy 
and  irreproachable  it  is,  under  your  lordship's  administration, 
to  betray  his  first,  his  nearest,  and  his  dearest  friend ;  to  sac- 
rifice the  interests  and  the  honor  of  a  young  nobleman,  the 
companion  and  confidant  of  his  private  hours,  at  the  dishon- 
orable shrine  of  ministerial  influence."  The  letter  appeared 
on  the  fourth  of  March ;  and  on  the  fifth,  by  two  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  which  with  him  was  equivalent  to  the  first 
thing  in  the  morning,  Fox  had  already  called  at  the  office  of 
the  journal  in  the  hope  of  seeing  the  editor.  Having  failed 
in  his  attempt  to  obtain  a  personal  interview,  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Woodfall,  begging  him,  in  firm  but  civil  terms,  to  give  up  the 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  371 

name  of  his  contributor,  as  Mr.  Charles  Fox  was  anxious  to 
have  some  conversation  with  him  on  an  interesting  subject. 
"If  the  author,"  so  the  invitation  was  worded,  "either  is,  or 
professes  to  be,  a  gentleman,  he  can  scarcely  refuse  me  this 
request."  But  the  much -enduring  Ulysses  was  not  to  be 
drawn.  He  was  well  aware  that,  if  once  he  stood  on  the 
grass  beneath  the  sharp  eyes  of  Richard  Fitzpatrick,  foot  to 
foot  with  the  lad  whom  his  own  father  had  taught  his  letters, 
the  mystery  of  the  epoch  would  be  a  mystery  no  longer. 
The  secret  which,  a  generation  after  it  had  ceased  to  be  dan- 
gerous, he  carried  into  his  grave  safe  from  the  curiosity  of 
domestic  affection,  and  the  promptings  of  his  own  overween- 
ing vanity,  would,  at  a  crisis  when  disclosure  was  destruction, 
be  known  to  at  least  three  besides  himself,  of  whom  two  were 
hostile ;  and,  unless  the  encounter  proved  bloodless,  which  be- 
tween such  opponents  was  not  to  be  thought  of,  the  story 
would  within  twenty -four  hours  be  patent  to  the  whole 
world.  Ulysses  would  be  identified  with  Mnemon,  and  Mne- 
mon  with  Junius.  His  enormous  influence  over  the  minds 
of  his  countrymen,  of  which  he  was  silently  but  most  justifi- 
ably proud,  would  vanish  in  a  day.  There  would  be  an  end 
to  his  hopes  of  a  career  in  the  House  of  Commons — hopes 
very  precious  to  him,  and,  as  the  event  showed,  not  presumpt- 
uous. His  post  in  the  department,  where  he  was  doing  such 
well-paid  work,  would  be  vacant  as  soon  as  the  secretary  at 
war  could  get  hold  of  a  scrap  of  paper  on  which  to  write  his 
dismissal.  But  the  loss  of  the  means  of  living  would  be  a 
small  matter  to  one  at  whose  throat  a  score  of  swords  would 
at  once  be  pointed ;  and  when  he  had  run  the  gantlet  of 
Bedford's  friends  and  Lowther's  trenchermen,  and  the  broth- 
er-sportsmen of  Grafton,  and  the  half-pay  colonels  who  had 
been  Granby's  aides-de-camp — of  the  Guardsmen  whose  mil- 
itary privileges  he  had  assailed  with  the  effective  accuracy  of 
official  knowledge,  and  the  courtiers  whose  master  he  had 
lectured  with  irreverence  which  to  them  was  nothing  short  of 
sacrilege — he  had  still  before  him  the  prospect,  for  years  to 
come,  of  spending  in  the  King's  Bench  Prison  every  spare 
moment  that  he  was  not  in  the  custody  of  the  sergeant-at- 


372  THE   EARLY    HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

arms.  Philip  Francis,  as  nine  years  later  all  Calcutta,  and 
soon  all  London,  knew,  was  not  a  whit  less  brave  than  he  was 
quarrelsome ;  but  Junius  consistently  refused  to  go  into  the 
field  with  antagonists  who  staked  nothing  but  the  chance  of 
a  wound  against  the  certainty  of  his  own  utter  ruin.  Charles 
Fox,  like  Sir  William  Draper  before  him,  was  obliged  to  con- 
fess that  he  had  not  mastered  the  spell  which  could  force  that 
dreaded  shadow  to  display  itself  in  flesh  and  blood.1 

While  Charles  Fox  was  consistent  in  his  fidelity  to  the 
theory  of  government  which  Bute  had  invented  and  North 
perfected,  he  was  consistent  in  nothing  else.  The  ministers 
could  always  rely  on  him  to  defend  any  stretch  of  authority 
or  abuse  of  patronage  which  the  necessities  of  their  singularly 
false  position  obliged  them  to  commit;  but  when  a  matter 
which  had  not  yet  been  developed  into  an  article  of  party 
faith  was  before  the  House,  no  man  could  predict  anything 
with  regard  to  him  except  that  he  was  quite  sure  to  speak. 
The  prudent  and  the  elderly,  Whigs  and  Tories  alike,  foresaw 
with  compassion  the  troubles  that  were  in  store  for  one  who, 
on  whichever  side  in  politics  he  eventually  settled  himself, 
would  have  so  very  much  to  unsay.  But,  as  Burke  told  an 
author  who  was  reckoned  a  prodigy  because  she  wrote  well  at 
a  time  of  life  when  Fox  was  already  a  veteran  among  orators, 
"  it  is  vain  to  preach  economy  to  those  who  are  come  young 
to  excessive  and  sudden  opulence."  2     It  is  gratifying  to  ob- 

1  Junius  refused  to  fight  Sir  William  Draper  on  the  ground  that  Sir 
William,  having  answered  him  in  print,  had  agreed  to  abide  by  the  or- 
deal of  literary  combat,  and  was  not  entitled  to  any  other  form  of  satis- 
faction. Not  having  the  same  plea  to  urge  in  the  case  of  Charles  Fox, 
Ulysses  was  content  to  let  his  challenge  lie  unnoticed  among  the  archives 
of  the  Public  Advertiser.  The  story  is  told  in  the  memoir  of  Sir  Philip 
Francis  which  was  commenced  by  Mr.  Joseph  Parkes,  and  completed  by 
an  author  who  has  written  only  too  little  and  too  unambitiously — the 
late  Mr.  Herman  Merivale.  That  memoir  has  virtually  set  at  rest  the 
controversy  that  once  promised  to  be  eternal.  Mr.  Merivale,  it  may  be 
observed,  makes  the  slight  error  of  printing  the  nom  deplume  affixed  to 
the  letters  on  the  Nullum  Tempus  Bill  as  "  Memnon,"  instead  of  "  Mne- 
mon." 

2  Burke  to  Fanny  Burney ;  July  29, 1782. 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  373 

serve  that  the  future  champion  of  liberty  and  humanity  gave 
frequent  proof  that  the  wealth  with  which  nature  had  so  lav- 
ishly endowed  him  was  sterling  coin.  He  was  generally  ready 
to  make  the  most  of  every  occasion  on  which  the  obligations 
of  a  partisan  did  not  prevent  his  kindliness  and  his  justice 
from  having  free  play.  When  Sir  William  Meredith,  antici- 
pating the  labors  of  Eomilly,  protested  against  the  barbarity 
and  the  inefficacy  of  a  criminal  code  which  attached  the  pen- 
alty of  death  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  separate  offences,  and  ex- 
ecuted that  penalty  upon  only  one  criminal  out  of  every  sev- 
enty-five who  were  sentenced  to  it,  his  motion  for  an  inquiry 
was  seconded  by  Fox.  And  whenever  the  vexed  question  of 
religious  tests  was  mooted  in  the  Commons,  the  most  ambi- 
tious aspirant  for  a  high  career  who  had  opened  his  lips  there 
since  William  Pitt  thundered  against  the  Spanish  convention 
voluntarily  incurred  the  bitter  and  lasting  displeasure  of  the 
sovereign,  whose  favor  was  in  those  days  indispensable  to  his 
hopes,  by  boldly  and  persistently  asserting  that  respect  for 
the  rights  of  conscience  was  not  incompatible  with  the  duty 
of  a  servant  of  the  Crown. 

In  1768,  amidst  the  chaos  of  personal  rivalry  and  public 
corruption  which  ensued  upon  the  dissolution  of  Parliament, 
an  accurate  and  most  experienced  observer  had  discovered 
symptoms  that  betokened  the  dawn  of  better  things.  "  The 
general  election,"  wrote  Dr.  Lardner,  who,  in  the  course  of  his 
eighty-four  years,  had  watched  intelligently  at  least  twelve 
general  elections,  "  has  let  us  know  the  tempers  of  men,  and 
assured  us  of  a  spirit  of  liberty  reigning  in  the  lower  rank 
and  also  in  many  of  middle  rank."  Nowhere  did  that  spirit 
exhibit  itself  in  such  striking  and  varied  aspects  as  among  the 
members  of  the  denomination  which  looked  up  to  Lardner  as 
its  patriarch,  and  which  counted  Price  and  Priestley  as  hardly 
the  most  distinguished  amidst  its  many  ornaments.  There 
was  not  another  class  of  the  community  in  which  the  average 
of  intellect  and  attainments  ranged  so  high  as  among  those 
Presbyterians  who  during  the  last  half -century  had  been 
drawing  ever  nearer  to  the  tenets,  and  more  willingly  answer- 
ing to  the  name,  of  Unitarians.     The  ministers  of  that  body 


374  THE   EAKLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IX. 

were  eminent  in  many  departments  of  exact  knowledge,  and 
solidly  but  unpretentiously  read  in  literature.  They  were 
masters  of  the  clearest,  and  perhaps  the  most  agreeable,  Eng- 
lish that  ever  has  been  written — the  English  of  the  middle 
class  in  the  generation  before  the  French  Revolution,  which 
Johnson  spoke  always  and  wrote  when  he  was  old;  which 
Arthur  Young  and  Benjamin  Franklin  possessed  in  its  per- 
fection; and  which,  after  it  had  deservedly  made  his  fame, 
William  Cobbett  at  length  carried  into  burlesque.  The  Pres- 
byterian leaders  stood  valiantly  to  the  front  whenever  the 
general  interests  of  Nonconformity  were  at  stake.  They  ex- 
ercised always  and  in  all  places  a  freedom  denied  to  them  by 
statutes  which  the  magistrate  did  not  venture  to  enforce. 
Alone  of  sects  they  refused  to  be  trammelled  by  a  verbal 
creed.  They  thought  as  they  chose;  they  preached  as  they 
thought;  and  the  plenitude  of  their  liberty  aroused  the  ad- 
miring envy  of  many  parish  clergymen,  and  not  a  few  actual 
and  expectant  dignitaries  of  the  English  Church,  who,  think- 
ing with  them,  were  ill  at  ease  within  the  rigid  and  narrow 
limits  of  the  Establishment. 

The  foremost  of  these  men  who  felt  themselves  misplaced 
in  a  calling  where  their  opinions,  after  every  reasonable  allow- 
ance and  permissible  reservation  had  been  made,  grievously 
belied  the  professions  with  which  they  had  entered  it,  was 
Theophilus  Lindsey,  the  Vicar  of  Catterick,  in  Yorkshire.  The 
example  and  influence  of  Priestley,  whose  intimate  friend  he 
was,  added  point  to  the  scruples  which  had  long  made  this  ex- 
cellent pastor  restless  and  uncomfortable  inside  a  fold  which 
he  loved  too  well  to  quit  until  he  had  tried  his  utmost  to  en- 
large its  borders.1  His  efforts  at  one  time  seemed  likely  to 
be  crowned  with  success.    In  the  July  of  1771,  a  meeting  was 


1  It  was  in  1769,  at  Archdeacon  Blackburn e's  rectory,  that  Lindsey 
first  met  Dr.  Priestley,  who  was  travelling  in  the  company  of  Dr.  Turner, 
a  man  of  science  and  a  layman.  After  the  party  had  broken  up,  Mrs. 
Lindsey  remarked  on  the  playful  talk  and  cheerful  air  of  their  new  ac- 
quaintances, who  bore  their  weight  of  knowledge  and  celebrity  so  light- 
ly. "  Ah,"  returned  her  husband ;  "  your  observation  is  just.  But  they 
are  at  ease." 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  375 

held  at  the  Feathers  Tavern,  attended  by  a  score  of  clergy- 
men, and  some  doctors  of  physic  and  civil  law.1  Archdeacon 
Elackbnrne — whose  arguments  and  expostulations,  carefully 
framed  to  soothe  the  sensibilities  of  the  most  unworldly  and 
disinterested  among  men,  had  with  difficulty  kept  Lindsey 
from  seceding  at  any  moment  during  the  past  five-and-twenty 
years — was  intrusted  with  the  charge  of  drawing  up  a  peti- 
tion to  the  House  of  Commons,  praying  that  clergymen  of 
the  Church  and  graduates  of  the  universities  might  be  re- 
lieved from  the  burden  of  subscribing  to  the  Articles,  and 
"restored  to  their  undoubted  rights  as  Protestants  of  inter- 
preting Scripture  for  themselves,"  without  being  tied  to  any 
human  comment  or  explanation.  Throughout  the  autumn 
there  was  an  active  canvass  for  signatures.  Lindsey  visited 
the  country  parsonages  and  cathedral  closes  that  lay  along 
two  thousand  miles  of  road  in  the  South  of  England,  with 
hopes  that  grew  fainter  as  he  became  more  widely  acquainted 
with  the  mental  attitude  of  his  clerical  brethren.  When  Parr 
held  aloof,  who  tried  to  get  preferment  in  the  Church  of  Ire- 
land for  one  Unitarian  minister,  and  recommended  a  work 
written  by  another  as  a  religious  manual  for  his  own  lady 
friends — when  Paley  refused  his  name  under  the  influence  of 
a  feeling  which  he  himself  dubbed  cowardice — Lindsey  must 
have  known  how  little  was  to  be  expected  from  less  indepen- 
dent and  enlightened  men.  It  took  six  months  of  indefatiga- 
ble and  ubiquitous  work  to  collect  two  hundred  and  fifty 
names,  including  those  of  the  laity.  Lindsey  expressed  his 
disappointment  and  concern  in  measured  and  dignified  terms; 
but  other  laborers  in  the  cause  were  more  outspoken.  "  I  am 
verily  persuaded,"  wrote  a  good  man  who  had  starved  upon 
a  cure  of  forty  pounds  a  year  because  he  could  not  bring  him- 
self to  purchase  promotion  by  repeating  his  subscription  to 
the  Articles,  "  that  if  the  Bible  was  burned  to-morrow,  and  the 

1  The  numbers  present  are  very  differently  given  by  different  authori- 
ties. Priestley,  writing  to  Lindsey  three  weeks  after  the  event,  says,  "If 
I  have  been  rightly  informed,  you  were  no  more  than  twenty-four  at  the 
meeting,  and  you  were  in  the  chair,  which  I  think  more  to  your  honor 
than  being  at  the  head  of  any  convocation  or  general  council." 


376  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

Alcoran  introduced  and  established  in  its  stead,  we  should 
still,  provided  the  emoluments  were  the  same,  have  plenty 
of  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons."  To  compensate  him  for  his 
failure  among  those  of  his  own  cloth,  Lindsey  had  reason  to 
be  proud  of  the  quality,  if  not  the  number,  of  the  politicians 
whom  he  converted  to  his  views.  The  first  impulse  of  a 
Whig  was  to  favor  a  proposal  which  would  leave  one  test  the 
fewer  in  a  world  where  men  whose  only  ambition  was  to  go 
quietly  about  their  business  found  themselves  encountered 
at  every  turn  by  oaths,  subscriptions,  and  affirmations.  Sir 
George  Savile  and  Lord  John  Cavendish  promised  to  support, 
though  they  declined  to  present,  the  petition.  A  still  heart- 
ier adhesion  was  given  by  Thomas  Pitt,  who,  while  a  student 
at  Cambridge,  had  been  honored  by  his  uncle  Lord  Chatham 
with  a  series  of  letters  of  advice  and  encouragement  which 
young  men  who  get  their  rules  of  life  from  books  would  do 
well  to  read  as  an  antidote  to  Lord  Chesterfield.  The  care 
and  affection  of  the  great  statesman  were  not  thrown  away ; 
for  his  nephew's  mind  was  early  imbued  with  principles 
which  were  illustrated  by  his  conduct  and  recommended  by 
his  manners  throughout  a  career  that  began  with  an  act  of 
self-sacrifice  rare  in  all  ages,  and  next  to  superhuman  in  his 
own.  To  break  an  entail  with  the  object  of  paying  a  father's 
debts  was  an  inversion  of  the  order  of  things  amazing  to  all 
his  contemporaries,  and  certainly  not  least  so  to  another  rising 
senator  who,  if  in  little  else,  resembled  him  in  his  repugnance 
to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  "  The  other  day  "  (wrote  Lind- 
sey, quoting  from  one  of  his  numerous  and  industrious  cor- 
respondents), "Dr.  Hunt  went  to  wait  upon  Lord  Upper  Os- 
sory  at  his  hunting -seat,  where  was  Charles  Fox  and  other 
lively  bucks.  The  doctor  opened  upon  the  subject  of  our 
petition,  and  asked  if  they  had  heard  of  this  intention  of  ad- 
dressing Parliament.  <  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Fox ;  <  and,  if  conducted 
with  temper  and  prudence,  it  may  not  be  a  bad  scheme.' " 
The  doctor,  who  wished  to  keep  matters  as  they  were,  re- 
minded the  young  minister  that,  in  a  season  of  political  ex- 
citement, whatever  disturbed  the  Church  must  tend  to  em- 
barrass the  government.     "  If  I  thought  so,"  replied  Fox,  "  I 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  377 

would  oppose  it.  But  perhaps,  as  there  are  no  very  consider- 
able persons  concerned  in  it,  it  will  drop  of  itself." 

A  cause  on  behalf  of  which  even  Charles  Fox  did  not  con- 
trive to  be  more  than  lukewarm  could  hardly  be  of  a  nature 
to  arouse  any  very  potent  or  wide-spread  enthusiasm.  Against 
the  petitioners,  on  the  other  hand,  was  arrayed  an  overwhelm- 
ing combination  of  forces  which  seldom,  indeed,  have  found 
themselves  on  the  same  side.  Lindsey  and  his  friends  were 
met  by  the  passive  resistance  of  all  the  laziness  and  selfish- 
ness which  existed  in  the  Church  of  England  at  a  period 
when  her  dearth  of  energy  and  devotion  has  passed  into  a 
commonplace  of  history ;  and  they  had  to  prepare  themselves 
for  the  active  reprisals  of  a  host  of  combatants,  animated  by 
an  earnestness  as  intense  as  their  discipline  was  effective. 
The  zeal,  the  munificence,  the  spirit  of  organized  and  con- 
certed effort,  which  in  later  times  destroyed  slavery  and  the 
slave-trade,  laid  the  foundation  of  popular  education  at  home, 
and  carried  the  Bible  far  and  wide  throughout  the  inhabited 
world,  were  now,  in  all  the  freshness  of  their  early  vigor,  di- 
rected against  a  project  that  was  nothing  less  than  abhorrent 
in  the  eyes  of  Evangelicals  both  inside  and  outside  the  Church. 
They  viewed  that  project  in  the  light  of  a  plausible  device 
for  herding  together,  on  the  common  ground  of  a  cold  moral- 
ity, those  rival  denominations  which  kept  religion  alive  by 
the  stir  and  fervor  of  their  conscientious  differences.  Lindsey 
must  have  been  sorely  disheartened  by  the  answer  that  he 
got  when  he  imparted  the  enterprise  which  he  and  Arch- 
deacon Blackburne  had  in  hand  to  that  Dissenter  who,  of  all 
others,  was  the  most  likely  to  bid  them  godspeed.  "  If  it  be 
possible,"  wrote  Priestley,  "  for  us  to  act  in  concert  with  you, 
I  wish  you  would  tell  us  how.  In  the  present  state  of  Chris- 
tianity, I  am  for  increasing  the  number  of  sects  rather  than 
diminishing  them.  But  I  am  only  one  individual.  There 
may  be  Dissenters  who  are  just  as  the  archdeacon  would  have 
them." 

Such  were  the  impressions  of  a  philosopher  whose  temper- 
ament and  opinions  inclined  him  to  a  policy  of  compromise, 
and  whose  friendship  for  the  author  of  that  policy  had  led 


378  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IX. 

him  hitherto  to  strain  a  point  in  its  favor.  It  may  therefore 
easily  be  imagined  how  an  offer  so  redolent  of  Erastianism 
was  entertained  by  the  old  Nonconformist  associations  which 
had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  evil  days  that  intervened  between 
the  Restoration  and  the  Revolution ;  and  by  that  still  more 
formidable  body  of  men  who  were  so  intent  on  higher  mat- 
ters that  they  had  not  yet  found  leisure  to  determine  whether 
they  werd  Nonconformists,  or  whether  they  were  not.  The 
disciples  of  Wesley  laid  aside  for  a  moment  their  standing 
quarrel  with  the  controversialists  upon  whom  the  recently 
dropped  mantle  of  Whitefield  had  fallen,  in  order  to  unite 
the  Arminian  and  Calvinistic  sections  of  the  Methodist  party 
in  a  joint  declaration  that,  however  filial  might  be  their  re- 
lations with  the  Church  of  England,  if,  like  that  of  Ephesus, 
.she  returned  to  her  first  love,  they  would  have  no  commun- 
ion, then  or  thereafter,  with  a  church  of  Laodicea.  But  Lind- 
sey's  most  active  opponent  was  not  of  his  own  rank  or  his 
own  sex.  Wesley,  who  just  then  had  upon  him  one  of  the 
hottest  of  his  queer  political  fits,  and  seriously  contemplated 
devoting  himself  to  the  confutation  of  Junius,  was  too  much 
inclined  to  defend  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  from  behind  the 
old  Tory  lines  of  Church  and  State,  and  left  it  for  the  famous 
lady  who  now  was  his  one  real  rival  in  his  own  field  to  fight 
the  battle  on  firmer  and  higher  ground.  The  Countess  of 
Huntingdon  had  little  love  for  those  latitudinarian  opinions 
in  which  her  husband  died,  and  which  in  her  son  were  fast 
becoming  something  more  than  latitudinarian  by  a  process 
of  mental  reaction  intelligible  to  those  who  have  groped  their 
way  through  that  memoir  of  his  exemplary  mother  which 
will  remain  to  all  time  the  worst  edited  of  printed  books.1 


1  The  younger  Lord  Huntingdon  had  some  part  in  convincing  the  au- 
thor of  the  Broad-Church  movement  of  1771  that  the  English  Establish- 
ment -was  not  the  place  for  a  Crypto-Unitarian.  "  What  became  of  the 
universe,"  he  asked  of  Mr.  Lindsey,  "when  its  Creator  hung  lifeless  on  a 
tree  in  Judaea?"  "I  am  not  concerned,  my  lord,"  said  the  other,  "to  an- 
swer that  question;  the  foundation  on  which  it  rests  not  forming  any 
part  of  my  creed."     "But  the  belief  of  it  forms  a  part  of  the  creed  of 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  379 

And,  over  and  above  her  family  grievance,  Lady  Huntingdon 
brought  to  the  conflict  a  living  faith  which  had  nothing  to 
match  it  among  antagonists  nine  tenths  of  whom,  as  the  issue 
proved,  did  not  believe  in  their  own  cause  to  the  point  of 
suffering  for  it.  Never  wont  to  spare  herself,  she  worked  as 
she  had  never  worked  before.  She  banded  together,  in  un- 
compromising hostility  to  the  proposals  of  the  Broad-Church 
party,  all  professors  of  Methodism,  from  the  aristocratic  Lon- 
don circles  to  which  she  of  right  belonged  down  to  the  hum- 
blest group  who  gathered  weekly  round  a  lay  class-leader  in 
a  remote  Cornish  village.  She  called  in  person  on  members 
of  Parliament  who  were  doubtful  which  way  they  should 
vote,  and  indoctrinated  those  who  were  minded  to  speak  on 
so  unaccustomed  a  topic  with  ideas  and  phrases  that  were 
more  familiar  in  Moorfields  than  at  Westminster.  She  sup- 
plied the  prime -minister,  who  must  have  been  not  a  little 
amused  by  her  unselfish  importunity,  with  arguments  of  the 
most  exalted  character  in  favor  of  taking  a  course  which  he 
already  was  engaged  to  take  by  the  single  and  simple  motive 
for  which  he  did  everything — because  the  king  wished  it; 
and  the  king  had  pronounced  against  any  tampering  with 
the  Articles,  on  the  ground  that  "  all  wise  nations  have  stuck 
scrupulously  to  their  ancient  customs."  Lady  Huntingdon's 
apprehensions  were  finally  allayed  by  the  assurances  of  a 
statesman  whose  springs  of  action  were  more  complex  than 
those  of  North  and  his  master.  Burke  conveyed  to  her  by 
letter  the  promise  of  his  strenuous  aid  in  crushing  what  lie 
stigmatized  as  "  the  conspiracy  of  Atheism ;"  and  in  those 
days  a  measure  which  claimed  to  be  a  measure  of  reform 
stood  but  a  poor  chance  when  Burke  had  declared  himself 
against  it. 

The  petition,  which  Sir  William  Meredith  presented  on  the 
sixtli  of  February,  1772,  was  discussed  in  a  manner  worthy  of 
the  pains  that  had  been  taken  to  prime  the  speakers.1    Those 

that  Church  in  which  you  weekly  officiate  as  a  minister,"  was  Lord 
Huntingdon's  reply. 

1  "In  1772  I  published  two  short  letters  under  the  feigned  name  of  A 


380  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IX. 

giants  of  old,  whose  skill  had  been  exercised  in  so  many  des- 
perate and  dubious  conflicts,  now  showed  of  what  they  were 
capable  when  party  feeling  did  not  tempt  them  to  pervert  or 
exaggerate,  and  when  the  question  which  they  treated  had  not 
been  vulgarized  by  frequent  handling.  The  problem  of  the 
obligations  which  may  fairly  and  conveniently  be  imposed 
upon  the  ministers  of  a  privileged  church  was  stated  and  ex- 
amined with  a  clearness  and  conciseness  the  secret  of  which 
seems  to  have  been  lost  by  some  of  our  generation  who  choose 
that  problem  for  their  special  study ;  with  a  frankness  which 
makes  us  proud  to  think  what  courageous  fellows  our  great- 
grandfathers were ;  and  a  thoroughness  as  exhaustive  as  was 
attainable  by  an  assembly  of  men  who  had  not  yet  advanced 
to  the  point  of  asking  themselves  whether  it  was  necessary  to 
have  a  privileged  church  at  all.  As  long  as  such  an  institution 
continued  in  existence,  it  was  not  an  agreeable  task  to  answer 
the  objections  called  forth  by  the  proposal  that  a  declaration 
of  belief  in  the  Christian  religion,  as  set  forth  in  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  should  be  the  one  and  only  test  imposed  upon 
those  who  aspired  to  obtain  a  share  in  the  wealth  and  digni- 
ties of  the  Establishment,  and  to  teach  with  its  authority.  The 
stout  old  Tory  who  first  took  up  the  cudgels  against  Meredith 
asked  what  must  be  thought  of  ecclesiastics  who,  having 
scrambled  through  the  thorns  and  briers  for  the  sake  of  the 
grapes,  were  now  intent  upon  destroying  the  hedges  and  leav- 
ing the  vineyard  naked  and  defenceless.  "  Would  you,"  said 
another  member,  "  pay  a  hired  laborer  his  wages  if,  instead  of 
doing  a  piece  of  work  according  to  order,  he  adopted  a  plan 
of  his  own  perfectly  inconsistent  with  your  ideas  ?"  A  third 
speaker  went  to  the  root  of  the  matter  by  asserting  bluntly 
that  some  of  the  clergymen  who  had  petitioned  to  be  relieved 
from  any  test  but  the  Scriptures  did  not  find  in  the  Scriptures 


Christian  Whig,'  and  put  myself  to  the  expense  of  giving  a  copy  of  the 
first  to  every  member  of  the  House  the  clay  before  the  clerical  petition 
was  taken  into  their  consideration."  So  writes  Bishop  Watson  in  that 
book  of  anecdotes  which  a  reader  who  respects  his  character  and  agrees 
with  his  political  opinions  could  wish  were  a  thought  less  egotistical. 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  381 

that  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  which  was  held  by  the 
vast  majority  of  the  people  whose  souls  they  tended  and 
whose  substance  they  tithed.  Burke,  by  whom  this  idea  was 
expanded  into  an  oration,  had  seldom  been  finer,  and  never 
wiser.  His  exposition  of  the  insufficiency  of  a  declaration  of 
belief  in  the  Bible,  in  place  of  a  more  defined  and  detailed 
confession  of  faith,  may  be  quoted  as  an  example  of  the  high- 
est performance  of  a  man  of  letters  who  is  likewise  a  man  of 
the  world.1  He  would  do  much,  he  said,  in  order  to  remove  a 
substantial  grievance  which  could  be  remedied  without  inflict- 
ing a  greater  wrong  upon  a  larger  number.  But  what  griev- 
ance had  the  petitioners  to  show  ?  And  what  woulcLbe  the 
consequence  of  granting  them  the  concession  which  they 
craved?  Their  hardship  amounted  to  this,  that  the  nation 
was  not  taxed  two  shillings  in  the  pound  to  pay  them  for 
teaching  their  own  particular  fancies  as  divine  truths;  and 
that  hardship,  such  as  it  was,  could  only  be  relieved  at  the 
expense  of  others  whose  interests  and  wishes  had  a  far  more 
legitimate  claim  than  theirs  upon  the  consideration  of  Parlia- 
ment.    Among  a  serious  people,  who  looked  upon  religion  as 

1  "  The  subscription,  to  Scripture  is  the  most  astonishing  idea  I  ever 
heard,  and  will  amount  to  just  nothing  at  all.  Gentlemen  so  acute  have 
not  thought  of  answering  the  obvious  question,  what  is  that  Scripture 
which  they  are  content  to  subscribe.  They  do  not  think  that  a  book  be- 
comes of  divine  authority  because  it  is  bound  in  blue  morocco  and  is  print- 
ed by  John  Basket  and  his  assigns.  The  Bible  is  a  vast  collection  of  dif- 
ferent treatises.  A  man  who  holds  the  divine  authority  of  one  may  con- 
sider the  other  as  merely  human.  What  is  his  canon  ?  The  Jewish  ?  St. 
Jerome's?  That  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles?  Luther's?  There  are  some 
who  reject  the  Canticles ;  others  six  of  the  Epistles.  The  Book  of  Reve- 
lation has  been  a  bone  of  contention  among  divines.  Will  those  gentle- 
men exclude  the  Book  of  Esdras  ?  Will  they  include  the  Song  of  Songs  ? 
As  some  narrow  the  canon,  others  have  enlarged  it  by  admitting  St. 
Barnabas's  Epistles  and  the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  to  say  nothing  of 
many  other  gospels.  To  ascertain  Scripture  you  must  have  one  Article 
more,  in  order  to  define  what  that  Scripture  is  which  you  mean  to  teach. 
There  are,  I  believe,  very  few  who,  when  Scripture  is  so  ascertained,  do 
not  see  the  absolute  necessity  of  knowing  what  general  doctrine  a  man 
draws  from  it  before  he  is  authorized  by  the  State  to  teach  it  as  pure 
doctrine  and  receive  a  tenth  of  the  produce  of  our  lands." 


382  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IX. 

the  most  serious  of  concerns,  there  was  a  limit  to  the  possibil- 
ities of  ecclesiastical  compromise  ;  and  by  making  a  new  door 
into  the  Church  for  a  handful  of  men  who  might  find  a  more 
suitable  home  elsewhere,  at  least  ten  times  their  number 
would  be  driven  out  of  it. 

Savile  replied  in  a  noble  discourse  which,  like  Mr.  Bright's 
speech  on  the  Irish  Church  Bill,  suggested  to  all  who  heard 
it  that  a  statesman  who  has  his  heart  in  the  matter  might  beat 
the  clergy  on  their  own  stage.  "  I  cannot  help  saying,"  wrote 
John  Lee,  who,  as  one  of  the  few  lawyers  then  in  the  habit  of 
frequenting  sermons,  was  well  qualified  to  judge,  "that  I 
never  was  so  affected  with,  or  so  sensible  of,  the  power  of 
pious  eloquence  as  while  Sir  George  was  speaking.  It  was 
not  only  an  honor  to  him,  but  to  his  age  and  country."  Sav- 
ile's  highest  flight  was  inspired  by  the  alluring,  if  chimerical, 
hope  of  a  religious  union  with  that  multitude  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen  whose  merits  as  citizens  so  devoted  a  Whig  had 
the  best  of  reasons  gratefully  to  acknowledge.  '•  Some  gen- 
tlemen," he  said,  "are  apprehensive  that  if  the  Scriptures  are 
substituted  in  the  room  of  the  Articles,  it  will  be  a  means  of 
admitting  into  the  Church  a  great  number  of  sectaries.  Secta- 
ries, sir !  Had  it  not  been  for  sectaries,  this  cause  had  been 
tried  at  Rome.  Thank  God,  it  is  tried  here !  Some  gentlemen 
talk  of  raising  barriers  about  the  Church  of  God,  and  protect- 
ing his  honor.  They  might  talk  as  well  of  guarding  Omnipo- 
tence, and  raising  barriers  about  the  throne  of  heaven.  Bar- 
riers about  the  Church  of  God !  That  Church  which,  if 
there  be  any  veracity  in  Scripture,  shall  continue  forever,  and 
against  which  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail !  It  is  not 
we  who  should  set  bars  in  the  way  of  those  who  are  willing 
to  enter  and  labor  in  the  Church  of  God.  When  the  disciples 
came  to  Christ  and  complained  that  there  were  some  who  cast 
out  devils  in  his  name,  what  did  our  Saviour  do  ?  Did  he  send 
them  tests  and  Articles  to  be  subscribed  ?  Did  he  ask  them 
whether  they  were  Athanasians,  or  Arians,  or  Arminians? 
No.  He  delivered  that  admirable  and  comprehensive  maxim, 
1  He  that  is  not  against  me  is  for  me.'     Go  ye  and  say  like- 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES   FOX.  383 

Everybody  who  got  a  hearing  on  that  occasion  spoke  above 
himself  except  Charles  Fox.  During  the  four  days  and  nights 
that  surrounded  the  debate  he  was  only  once  in  bed ;  he  must 
have  drunk  a  dozen  of  wine ;  and  at  one  moment  he  had  lost 
as  many  thousands  of  pounds.  His  knowledge  of  the  subject 
under  discussion  was  that  of  an  Oxford  undergraduate,  clever 
enough  to  feel  the  absurdity  of  having  been  called  upon  to 
sign  the  Articles  at  his  matriculation,  and  lazy  enough  to  dis- 
like the  prospect  of  learning  them  by  heart,  when  the  time 
came  for  him  to  go  in  for  his  degree.  But,  such  as  it  was,  Fox 
had  no  notion  of  keeping  his  experience  to  himself ;  so  he 
washed  his  face  (a  process  which  there  is  reason  to  believe 
was  too  often  the  limit  of  his  ablutions),  and  went  down  to 
Westminster  to  inform  the  House  of  Commons,  with  an  air 
which  would  have  been  all  very  well  in  a  college  debating  so- 
ciet}^,  that  "religion  was  best  understood  when  least  talked 
of."  At  his  worst,  however,  he  had  always  his  point  to  make  ; 
and  the  smartest  thing  said  that  evening  was  his  allusion  to 
the  inconsistent  practice  of  the  university,  which  deferred  the 
oath  of  allegiance  and  supremacy  till  the  age  of  sixteen,  in  or- 
der that  the  person  who  had  to  take  it  might  be  competent  to 
determine  whether  he  was  a  loyal  subject  or  not ;  while  chil- 
dren of  twelve  were  invited  to  attest  the  truth  of  a  series  of 
propositions  relating  to  the  most  subtle  doctrines  and  the 
most  sublime  mysteries  that  ever  had  bewildered  the  intellect 
and  exalted  the  piety  of  mankind.  His  arguments,  which  did 
not  even  govern  his  own  vote,  sank  but  a  very  little  way  into 
the  minds  of  an  audience  to  whom  Savile  had  brought  de- 
light, but  not  conviction.  Meredith  had  only  seventy-one  sup- 
porters ;  whereas  the  members  of  Parliament  who  rejected  the 
petition  were  at  least  as  numerous  as  the  clergy  who  had 
signed  it.  The  question  was  raised  again,  after  an  interval  of 
a  year,  with  a  somewhat  more  favorable  result,  due  in  part  to 
an  excellent  speech  from  Charles  Fox,  who  was  anxious  to  ef. 
face  the  impression  of  a  levity  which  he  was  already  incapable 
of  repeating.1     In  1774  Sir  William  Meredith  returned  to  the 

1  In  1772  the  numbers  were  71  to  217.    In  1773  the  minority,  for  which 


384  THE   EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  IX. 

charge  for  the  last  time ;  but  his  labored  and  tedious  advocacy 
of  a  subject  rather  above  his  intellectual  calibre,  alienated 
hearers  over  whom 'he  had  lost  his  moral  influence  ever  since, 
in  an  evil  hour,  he  accepted  the  white  wand  of  comptroller  of 
the  household.  Burke,  with  a  readier  perception  than  usual 
of  the  tactics  which  the  situation  demanded,  spared  his  broth- 
er-members a  serious  oration,  and  kept  them  for  half  an  hour 
in  a  continual  fit  of  laughter  at  the  expense  of  the  right  hon- 
orable gentleman  who  lacked  the  wisdom  of  Moses,  although 
he  was  now  possessed  of  the  rod  of  Aaron.  The  sense  of  the 
House  was  so  evidently  against  Meredith  that  he  did  not  vent- 
ure to  divide.  The  cause  was  lost,  and  the  beaten  party  has- 
tened to  make  terms  with  the  conqueror.  Promotion  was 
dealt  out  in  generous  measure  among  the  petitioning  clergy- 
men who  consented  to  abide  in  the  Church  of  England;  but 
honors  so  won  were  not  honors  in  the  eyes  of  Lindsey.  Fore- 
seeing the  fate  of  the  venture  on  which  his  peace  of  mind  was 
staked,  he  resigned  his  vicarage  in  November,  1773  ;  aban- 
doned the  modest  luxury  to  whose  charms  he  is  reported  to 
have  been  far  from  insensible ;  sold  a  library  which  he  un- 
doubtedly loved ;  and  retired  with  his  wife  and  daughter  to  a 
ground-floor  in  Holborn,  on  a  weekly  income  that  was  counted 
by  shillings.  His  bishop  confessed  that  the  diocese  had  lost 
in  him  the  most  exemplary  among  its  ministers ;  and  the  con- 
gregation of  Catterick  heard  his  farewell  sermon  with  a  pas- 
sionate grief  that  was  nothing  less  than  a  phenomenon  at  an 
epoch  when  parishes  were  accustomed  to  see  their  parson 
come  and  go  with  an  indifference  which  was  mutual.  But  he 
did  not  obtain  nor  expect  the  consolation  which  is  afforded  by 
the  praise  of  men.  Solitary  self-sacrifice,  while  it  arouses  the 
tacit  resentment  of  all  who  feel  themselves  challenged  to  imi- 
tate it,  is  no  protection  against  the  censure  of  such  as  sincerely 
disapprove  the  opinions  which  have  prompted  the  act.  Lind- 
sey survived  to  see  four  of  those  who  had  put  their  hands  to 
the  petition  and  then  turned  back  elevated  in  succession  to 


Charles  Fox  was  one  of  the  tellers,  remained  at  much  the  same  figure, 
while  the  majority  sank  to  159. 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  385 

the  episcopal  bench;1  but  the  only  distinction  which  fell  to 
his  own  lot  consisted  in  a  few  lines  of  grudging,  and  even  sin- 
ister, commendation  by  a  poet  who  so  nobly  celebrated  the 
martyrs  of  faith  that  he  might  have  had  something  better  than 
irony  to  bestow  upon  the  martyr  of  honesty.3 

Lindsey  would  have  felt  less  reason  to  despair  if  he  could 
have  persuaded  himself  that  the  House  of  Commons,  in  re- 
jecting his  cherished  scheme,  had  been  actuated  by  religious 
bigotry.  But  the  earlier  parliaments  of  George  the  Third, 
whatever  might  be  their  faults,  were  conspicuously  free  from 
the  narrowness  and  timidity  which  blighted  the  understand- 
ings and  perverted  the  actions  of  our  public  men  when  once 
Robespierre  and  the  Convention  had  frightened  them  into  in- 
tolerance. Hardly  any  one  who  spoke  either  for  or  against 
the  petition  of  the  clergy  sat  down  without  having  said  some- 
thing civil  to  the  Dissenters;  and  Lord  North  went  so  far  as 
to  exclaim  against  the  injustice  of  the  regulation  which  still 
required  Nonconformist  ministers  and  schoolmasters  to  sign 
the  greater  part  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  The  State,  he 
declared,  had  no  right  to  impose  conditions  upon  men  who 
did   not   ask  for  emoluments.     Encouraged   by  so   plainly 

1  Watson,  who,  if  lie  did  not  actually  sign  the  petition,  at  least  spent 
ink  and  money  in  canvassing  for  it,  was  the  ablest  of  the  four.  The  most 
eager  to  recant  was  Porteus,  afterwards  Bishop  of  London,  and  such  a 
light  of  Evangelicalism  that  Hannah  More  set  his  bust  in  her  garden. 
Lindsey,  taking  mild  revenge  in  an  anagram,  conferred  on  him  the  nick- 
name of  Doctor  Proteus. 

"  They  now  are  deemed  the  faithful,  and  are  praised, 
Who,  constant  only  in  rejecting  Thee, 
Deny  thy  Godhead  with  a  martyr's  zeal, 
And  quit  their  office  for  their  error's  sake ; 
Blind,  and  in  love  with  darkness !    Yet  even  these 
Worthy,  compared  with  sycophants  who  kneel 
Thy  name  adoring,  and  then  preach  thee  man." 

The  lines  occur  towards  the  end  of  the  "Winter's  Walk  at  Noon." 
They  contrast  painfully  with  the  passage  in  the  "  Morning's  Walk"  com- 
mencing "  Patriots  have  toiled,"  which,  in  the  sweet  expression  of  sym- 
pathy with  heroic  deeds  and  sufferings,  yields  to  very  little  blank  verse 
in  or  out  of  Shakespeare. 

25 


386  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

worded  an  invitation  from  so  high  a  quarter,  the  Unitarians 
lost  no  time  in  applying  to  Parliament  to  relieve  them  from 
a  position  which  was  always  precarious,  and  which  might  at' 
any  moment  become  intolerable.  As  honest  men  they  could 
not  pretend  an  assent  to  doctrines  which  they  disbelieved ;  as 
thoughtful  men  they  objected  on  principle  to  binding  con- 
science and  reason  in  the  rigid  and  awkward  fetters  of  a 
printed  confession  of  faith;  and  their  refusal  to  subscribe 
placed  them  outside  the  protection  of  the  Toleration  Act,  and 
left  their  fortunes  and  their  liberty  dependent  on  the  indul- 
gence of  their  rulers  and  the  good-feeling  of  their  fellow- 
citizens.  Priestley  could  not  give  a  lesson  to  his  pupils  or  a 
sermon  to  his  congregation  without  coming  inside  the  tether 
of  the  savage  laws  which,  between  1660  and  1672,  filled  the 
jails  and  pillories  with  the  brave  and  the  innocent;  those 
laws  which,  as  Chatham  forcibly  remarked,  were  coupled  up 
like  bloodhounds,  to  be  let  loose  at  the  heels  of  the  Dissenters 
if  ever  they  made  themselves  troublesome  to  the  government 
in  the  pulpit  or  at  the  polling-booth.  At  the  best  of  times 
the  famous  philosopher  and  his  coreligionists  were  at  the 
mercy  of  any  justice  who  had  a  mind  to  play  the  tyrant,  or 
any  neighbor  who  was  ill-natured  enough  to  lay  an  informa- 
tion ;  and  times  could  not  always  be  at  the  best.  The  public 
opinion  which  kept  in  abeyance  the  Five  Mile  Act  and  the 
Conventicle  Act  was  not  immutable ;  and  if  ever  the  tide 
of  unpopularity  ran  against  the  Nonconformists,  they  would 
assuredly  find  that  a  law  which  was  dormant  had  not  ceased 
to  be  dangerous.  Twenty  years  afterwards  there  would  have 
been  no  lack  of  informers  among  the  ruffians  who  burned 
their  libraries  and  sacked  their  warehouses  in  the  name  of 
Church  and  King;  and  the  magistrates  who  cheered  on  the 
mob  to  plunder  and  arson  would  certainly  not  have  refrained 
from  imposing  upon  the  objects  of  their  dislike  and  suspicion 
those  legal  penalties  which  the  Statute-book  empowered  them 
to  enforce. 

The  Nonconformist  leaders  were  determined  that,  if  they 
still  were  doomed  to  live  on  sufferance,  at  any  rate  they  should 
not  have  themselves  to  blame ;  and  so  prompt  was  their  action 


1771-72.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  387 

that  a  bill  for  their  relief  was  on  the  table  of  the  House  of 
Commons  before  the  session  of  1772  was  past  the  middle  of 
its  course.  They  confidently  relied  upon  the  favorable  dis- 
positions which  the  ministry  had  evinced  towards  them ;  but 
they  forgot  that,  behind  the  ministry,  their  sworn  enemy  (for, 
mindful  of  his  coronation  oath,  George  the  Third  insisted  on 
so  regarding  himself)  sat  ensconced  upon  the  throne  which  his 
ancestors  owed  to  theirs.  The  king  was  disturbed  and  per- 
plexed by  the  appearance  of  a  measure  which  the  House  of 
Commons  liked  and  the  country  demanded ;  but  his  astute- 
ness and  his  resolution  did  not  fail  him,  and  he  soon  devised 
a  system  of  Fabian  strategy  which  staved  off  the  inevitable 
concession  for  seven  livelong  years.  There  was  no  occasion 
(such  was  the  tenor  of  the  instructions  which  he  laid  down 
for  Lord  North's  guidance)  to  endanger  the  seats  of  gentle- 
men who  were  returned  on  the  Dissenting  interest  by  oblig- 
ing them  to  go  counter  to  the  wishes  of  their  constituents. 
They  might  safely  be  allowed  to  get  from  the  question  what 
credit  they  could  against  the  approaching  general  election ; 
for  the  prime-minister  (whose  openly  expressed  concurrence 
with  the  views  of  the  Nonconformists  his  Majesty  quietly 
ignored) 1  might  count  upon  the  bill  being  lost  in  the  Peers. 
The  king  was  as  good  as  his  word.  The  measure,  after  pass- 
ing the  Lower  House  with  flying  colors,  was  quashed  in  the 
Upper  House  beneath  the  weight  of  overwhelming  numbers ; 
and  the  official  character  of  the  majority  was  indicated  by  the 
fact  that  the  bishops,  who  helped  to  vote  down  the  Relief 
Bill  in  the  Lords,  exceeded,  by  more  than  two  to  one,  the 
members  who  vainly  opposed  it  in  the  Commons. 

But  the  question  had  a  vitality  which  it  required  something 
more  than  the  perfunctory  antagonism  of  prelates  and  place- 
men to  extinguish.  It  was  raised  afresh  in  the  Lower  House 
within  the  twelvemonth ;  and  this  time  the  king's  friends  re- 


1  Mr.  George  Onslow  had  actually  been  in  communication  with  the 
Presbyterian  clergy  on  behalf  of  the  Treasury ;  had  begged  them  to 
grant  him  the  honor  of  bringing  in  their  bill ;  and  had  assured  them 
that  they  had  the  good  wishes  both  of  Lord  North  and  Lord  Mansfield. 


.3^>  THE   EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  IX. 

solved  not  to  abandon  their  first  line  of  defence  without  a  strug- 
gle. Their  decision  was  fortified  by  a  petition  from  a  group  of 
Dissenting  ministers  who,  fearing  Socinianism  more  than  they 
loved  religious  liberty,  entreated  Parliament  not  to  surrender 
a  test  imposed  expressly  for  the  maintenance  of  those  essen- 
tial doctrines  on  which  the  Reformation  was  founded.  Lady 
Huntingdon,  who  thoroughly  understood  the  distinction  be- 
tween toleration  and  latitudinarianism,  remonstrated  earnestly 
with  these  misguided  men;  but  they  went  blindly  to  their 
fate,  which  was  as  terrible  as  any  that  oratory  has  within  the 
resources  of  its  armory  to  inflict.  "Two  bodies  of  men," 
said  Burke,  "approach  our  House,  and  prostrate  themselves 
at  our  bar.  { We  ask  not  honors,'  say  the  one.  '  We  have 
no  aspiring  wishes;  no  views  upon  the  purple.  The  mitre 
has  no  charms  for  us,  nor  aim  we  at  the  chief  cathedral  seats. 
Content  to  pass  our  days  in  an  humble  state,  we  pray,  for  the 
sake  of  him  who  is  Lord  of  conscience,  that  we  may  not  be 
treated  as  vagrants  for  acting  agreeably  to  the  dictates  of  in- 
ternal rectitude.'  'We,  on  the  contrary,'  say  the  Dissenters 
who  petition  against  Dissenters, c  enjoy  every  species  of  indul- 
gence we  can  wish  for ;  and,  as  we  are  content,  we  pray  that 
others  who  are  not  content  may  meet  with  no  relief.  vVe 
desire  that  you  wiil  not  tolerate  these  men,  because  they  will 
not  go  as  far  as  we ;  though  we  desire  to  be  tolerated — we 
who  will  not  go  as  far  as  you.  Our  prayer  to  this  Honor- 
able House  is  that  they  be  thrown  into  prison  if  ever  they 
come  within  five  miles  of  a  corporate  town,  because  they  stop 
somewhat  short  of  us  in  point  of  doctrine.'  What/'  cried 
the  indignant  speaker, "  shall  we  say  to  these  reptiles  except 
4  Arrangez-vous,  canaille !' "  K  any  one  would  measure  the 
extent  of  the  transformation  wrought  in  the  British  mind  by 
its  recoil  from  the  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution,  he  has 
but  to  imagine  the  storm*  of  fury  and  disgust  that  would  have 
been  raised  in  the  Parliament  of  1793  by  a  sentence  which, 
a  score  of  years  before,  was  heard  inside  the  same  walls  with 
a  composure  very  nearly  akin  to  approbation.  Even  in  1 7 
however,  it  was  boldly  spoken ;  but  there  was  something  that 
evening  still  more  boldly  done.     Charles  Fox,  who  had  made 


1771-72]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  B89 

it  his  vocation  to  serve  his  way  towards  that  official  eminence 
which  Burke  could  only  hope  to  cany  by  storm,  planted  him- 
self at  the  door  of  the  lobby  as  the  responsible  patron  of  a 
proposal  every  advocate  of  which  was  a  marked  man  in  the 
books  of  one  who  could  close  and  open  at  will  the  road  to 
place  and  power.  How  narrowly  and  attentively  the  king 
scanned  the  lists  of  those  who  told  and  voted  for  and  against 
the  measure  which  he  detested  was  known  a  fortnight  after- 
wards, when  that  measure  once  more  met  its  annual  death  in 
the  House  of  Lords.  Alone  among  his  brethren,  Green  of 
Lincoln  ventured  to  assert  the  principle  that  pious  and  learn- 
ed men  ought  not  to  be  ruined  and  imprisoned  for  the  crime 
of  preaching  to  hearers  who  would  reject  any  ministrations 
but  theirs.  a  Green  !  Green !??  exclaimed  the  king,  when  this 
instance  of  episcopal  mutiny  came  to  the  royal  ears ;  "  Green 
shall  never  be  translated ;?'  and  an  act  which  betokened  inde- 
pendence in  a  bishop,  who  could  hardly  hope  or  care  to  rise 
higher  than  the  hill  on  which  his  cathedral  stood,  was  nothing 
short  of  heroism  in  a  junior  lord  whose  ambition  was  as  un- 
bounded as  his  abilities.  But  could  Charles  Fox  have  fore- 
seen the  career  that  lay  before  him,  he  would  right  willingly 
have  incurred  the  very  extremity  of  Court  disfavor  as  the 
price  at  which  he  laid  the  foundation  of  the  strongest  and 
most  enduring  sentiment  that  any  section  of  the  English  com- 
munity has  ever  entertained  towards  any  statesman — the  grate- 
ful veneration  with  which  the  whole  body  of  his  Xonconform- 
-llow-citizens  adored  him  living,  and  mourned  him  dead.1 

1  A  gentleman  who  sat  as  the  first  member  for  Manchester  used  to  tell 
how  the  news  of  Fox's  death  affected  his  father,  a  leading  merchant  and 
citizen  of  that  town,  who  had  been  forced  to  hide  for  his  life  from  a  mob. 
set  on  by  men  of  his  own  class  to  punish  him  for  his  opposition  to  the 
American  war ;  who  became  a  Nonconformist  at  the  time  when  the  Church 
had  cast  in  her  lot  with  the  persecutors  of  ciTil  and  religious  liberty  in 
the  early  days  of  the  French  Revolution ;  and  who  lived  to  treasure  a 
Peterloo  medal.  The  child,  for  he  was  but  six  years  old,  never  forgot  the 
scene:  the  un tasted  meal;  the  unaccustomed  tears;  the  uplifted  hands; 
the  exclamation  that  the  cause  for  which  so  much  had  been  sacrificed 
and  suffered  had  received  an  irreparable  blow. 


390  THE   EARLY    HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 


CHAPTER  X. 
1772-1774. 

The  Moral  Danger  of  the  Position  in  which  Fox  now  stood. — He  at- 
tacks Lord  North  on  the  Church  Nullum  Tempus  Bill,  and  resigns 
the  Admiralty. — The  Motives  of  his  Conduct. — Marriages  of  the  Dukes 
of  Cumberland  and  Gloucester. — Anger  of  the  King. — The  Royal  Mar- 
riage Bill. — The  Bill  gets  through  the  Lords,  is  strenuously  opposed 
in  the  Commons,  and  with  difficulty  passes  into  Law.— Strong  Feeling 
of  Fox  on  the  Question. — His  Earnest  Efforts  against  the  Measure. — 
His  Sentiments  with  Regard  to  Women,  and  his  Eager  Care  of  their 
Rights  and  Interests  in  Parliament. — His  Private  Life. — The  Betting- 
book  at  Brooks's. — Personal  Tastes  and  Habits  of  Charles  Fox. — His 
Extravagance  and  Indebtedness.— Horace  Walpole  on  Fox. — Influence 
and  Popularity  of  the  Young  Man  in  the  House  of  Commons. — Fox 
goes  to  the  Treasury. — Lord  Clive. — Fox  and  Johnson. — John  Home 
Tooke. — Fox  leaves  the  Ministry,  never  to  return. 

For  the  present,  however,  there  was  no  love  lost  between 
the  Dissenters  and  their  champion  of  the  future.  Ten  years 
of  George  the  Third's  policy  had  separated  the  nation  into 
two  deeply  marked  and  intensely  hostile  factions,  which  in 
their  composition,  and  even  their  titles,  revived  some  of  the 
most  ominous  associations  in  our  history.  "  The  names  of 
Whig  and  Tory,"  said  a  political  writer  in  the  year  1774, 
"have  for  some  time  been  laid  aside,  and  that  of  the  Court 
party  and  Country  party  substituted  in  their  room ;"  and 
when  English  politics  took  the  shape  that  they  had  worn  un- 
der the  Stuarts,  there  was  no  doubt  on  which  side  the  Non- 
conformists would  be  banded.  Those  were  days  when  it  was 
not  permitted  to  be  friend  and  enemy  by  halves ;  and  an  oc- 
casional vote  or  speech  in  favor  of  religious  liberty  did  not 
make  Independents  and  Presbyterians,  who  were  Wilkites  al- 
most to  a  man,  forget  that  Charles  Fox  had  been  foremost  in 
keeping  the  representative  of  Middlesex  out  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  in  preventing  the  people  of  England  from 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  391 

learning  what  went  on  inside  it.  Here  and  there  might  be 
discovered  an  individual  member  of  the  middle  or  lower  class- 
es acute  enough  to  detect  that  the  young  politician  was  made 
of  different  stuff  from  the  jobbers  who  shared  his  bench  and 
cheered  his  speeches.1  But  the  mass  of  mankind  judge  their 
public  men  as  they  find  them ;  and  Fox  was  almost  univer- 
sally regarded  as  a  bird  of  the  same  feather  with  the  Bed- 
fords,  if,  indeed,  the  dice-box  had  not  rendered  that  metaphor 
inapplicable  to  any  of  the  clan.  To  the  great  majority  of 
reasonable  Englishmen  he  seemed  as  desperate  in  his  fortunes 
as  the  worst  of  his  colleagues ;  as  insolent  in  his  defiance  of 
sober  political  sense  and  legitimate  popular  aspirations;  and 
superior  to  them  in  nothing  except  in  those  mental  gifts  which 
he  had  hitherto  employed  only  to  the  detriment  of  the  com- 
monwealth.2    And  that  which  he   seemed  he  wTas   rapidly 

1  In  a  newspaper  of  the  period  there  is  a  letter  from  a  Quaker  com- 
mencing with  the  words  "  Friend  Charles  Fox,  thou  seemest  to  be  pos- 
sessed of  a  very  depraved  kind  of  ambition,"  and  urging  him  to  put  his 
talents  to  better  purpose  than  "  persecutions  for  telling  the  truth ;"  a 
letter  conceived  in  a  tone  of  respectful  and  hopeful  remonstrance  which 
its  author  would  never  have  wasted  upon  Wedderburn. 

3  The  reputation  for  mischievous  ability  which  Charles  Fox  had  ac- 
quired almost  in  boyhood  would  be  incredible  if  it  did  not  stand  record- 
ed in  almost  every  page  of  the  political  literature  of  the  day.  There 
was  no  enemy  of  liberty  so  powerful  and  so  highly  placed  that  the  lad's 
name  was  not  coupled  with  his  in  the  outbursts  of  public  reprobation. 
One  satirist,  writing  of  the  Barons  of  Runnymede,  tells  us  that 

"  Indignant  from  their  hallow'd  bed 
Each  lifts  a  venerable  head 

And  casts  a  look  of  fire 
At  Mansfield,  chief  among  the  band 
That  deal  injustice  round  the  land, 

At  either  Fox,  and  at  their  sire." 

Another  testifies,  in  not  ineffective  verse,  how  the  young  placeman  si- 
lenced those  among  his  elders  who  were  his  betters,  and  outdid  in  im- 
pudence those  who  were  not. 

"  Hear,  hear  him  !     Peace,  each  hoary  pate  ! 
While  ribaldry  succeeds  debate, 

Learn  pun  and  wit  from  youth  high-mettled." 


392  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chaf.  X. 

tending  to  become.  George  Herbert's  proverb,  "Keep  not 
ill  men  company,  lest  you  increase  the  number,"  would  soon 
have  met  with  its  usual  fulfilment  had  not  Providence,  kind- 
er to  Charles  Fox  than  himself,  made  use  of  his  own  unruly 
impulses  to  work  for  him  an  escape  from  a  contagion  which 
must  erelong  have  incurably  poisoned  even  such  an  intellect 
and  such  a  nature  as  his. 

On  the  seventeenth  of  February,  1772,  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, whose  family  estates  were  confiscated  abbey  lands,  the 
title-deeds  of  which  had  once  been  nearly  sold  for  old  parch- 
ment by  a  discharged  servant,  asked  leave  to  introduce  a  bill 
for  the  purpose  of  securing  the  holders  of  what  had  formerly 
been  Church  property  against  dormant  claims  of  more  than 
sixty  years'  standing.  Lord  North,  at  the  instance  of  the 
bishops,  with  whose  aid  in  the  Upper  House  his  government 
could  not  afford  to  dispense,1  warmly  opposed  the  motion,  and 
took  its  author  roundly  to  task  for  having  omitted  to  place 
the  House  of  Commons  in  possession  of  the  details  of  his 
scheme.  Put  roundness  and  warmth  were  not  words  to  de- 
scribe the  rollicking  audacity  with  which  Charles  Fox  fell 
upon  the  prime-minister,  charging  him  with  having  arbitra- 
rily invented  a  most  unparliamentary  rule  of  procedure  in 
order  to  combat  a  proposal  against  which  he  had  not  been 
at  the  pains  to  bring  forward  a  single  parliamentary  reason. 
Following  up  his  speech  with  his  vote,  he  took  with  him  into 
the  lobby  his  brother  Stephen,  and  other  members  upon  whose 
allegiance  Lord  North  was  accustomed  to  depend ;  so  that 
the  ministry  came  nearer  a  serious  defeat  than  they  had  ever 
done  since  the  evening  on  which  the  eloquence  of  the  same 
unaccountable  young  gentleman  had  preserved  them  from 
being  beaten  on  the  Nullum  Tempus  Pill  of  Sir  William 

Even  Rigby  is  told  to  look  to  his  laurels. 

"  Burnish  thy  shining  front  anew. 

Shall  Fox,  shall  Harley,  Luttrell,  dare 
"With  thine  their  foreheads  to  compare, 
Great  boatswain  of  the  Bloomsbury  crew  ?" 

1  Lindsey  to  Jebb,  March  3, 1772. 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  393 

Meredith.  After  such  an  exhibition,  few  were  surprised  to 
hear,  three  days  later,  that  Fox  had  resigned  his  Commission- 
ership  of  the  Admiralty.  Few  were  surprised  at  his  leaving 
office ;  but  everybody  was  discussing  the  why  and  the  where- 
fore of  the  oratorical  ebullition  which  rendered  it  impossible 
for  him  to  stay  there.  The  world,  as  its  manner  is,  accredited 
him  with  an  assortment  of  motives  tortuous  and  multifarious 
enough  to  have  explained  the  retirement  of  a  Mazarin  or  a 
Metternich ;  but  no  one  who  has  watched  the  growth  to  ma- 
turity of  a  powerful  character  can  be  at  a  loss  to  name  the 
causes  which  impelled  a  lad  of  twenty- three,  whose  head  had 
been  turned  by  a  run  of  unexampled  success,  towards  a  step 
which,  after  all,  was  less  foolish  than  the  world  supposed  it. 
Whenever  a  young  minister  goes  out,  he  is  influenced  by  the 
same  admixture  of  personal  and  public  feelings  and  consider- 
ations, combined  in  very  much  the  same  proportions.  Impa- 
tience of  restraint,  a  not  dishonorable  craving  for  real  power, 
a  distaste  for  official  reticence,  and  an  indifference  to  official 
dignity  and  emoluments  engender  a  state  of  mind  in  which 
a  diversity  of  view  on  an  important  question  with  those  su- 
periors who  are  masters  of  his  actions  and  his  voice  becomes 
a  burden  beyond  his  capacity  for  submission  and  self-efface- 
ment  to  endure.  One  who,  according  to  the  saying  of  his 
schoolfellows,  thought  himself  fit  for  the  privy  council  while 
he  was  still  at  Eton1  felt  it  an  insufferable  humiliation  to  be 
directed  how  he  was  to  speak,  and  when  he  was  to  hold  his 
tongue,  by  a  leader  who  had  the  advantage  of  him  in  nothing 
but  in  years  ;  and  his  injured  self-esteem,  always  on  the  eve  of 
an  explosion,  was  kindled  into  flame  on  a  sudden  by  a  spark 
from  a  nobler  and  purer  source.  Charles  Fox's  quarrel  with 
the  prime-minister  had  its  immediate  origin  in  his  ardor  on 
behalf  of  a  cause  curiously  unlike  those  which  ordinarily  at- 

1  "  Pray  tell  Charles  what  pleasure  his  promotion  gives  me.  As  to  his 
giving  himself  airs  about  being  only  in  the  Treasury  before  he  is  of  age, 
I  believe  he  thinks  he  ought  to  have  been  a  Privy  Counsellor  at  Eton." 
The  quotation  is  from  a  letter  of  Lord  Carlisle  to  Selwyn ;  written,  per- 
haps, early  in  1770,  when  it  was  certain  that  Fox  would  have  office,  but 
uncertain  what  that  office  was  to  be. 


394  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

tract  the  enthusiasm  of  the  young ;  but  for  which,  young  or 
old,  he  would  at  any  moment  of  his  life  have  been  willing  to 
sacrifice  everything. 

While  George  the  Third,  severe  and  conscientious  beyond 
his  years,  was  occupied  late  and  early  with  the  administrative 
and  ceremonial  business  of  the  State,  he  had  plenty  of  depu- 
ties to  do,  and  somewhat  to  overdo,  the  lighter  duties  of  roy- 
alty. During  the  jovial  decade  which  intervened  between 
the  Seven  Years'  War  and  the  American  troubles,  it  was  dif- 
ficult for  a  fashionable  gentleman  to  take  his  pleasure  in  pub- 
lic or  in  private  without  meeting  one  or  another  of  the  king's 
younger  brothers.  "  Every  place,"  wTrote  Walpole,  "  is  like 
one  of  Shakespeare's  plays:  ' Flourish.  Enter  the  Duke  of 
York,  Gloucester,  and  attendants.' "  Death  gradually  thinned 
the  illustrious  group,  carrying  off  princes  whom  the  world 
pronounced  hopeful  and  promising  in  exact  proportion  as 
they  died  young.  But  enough  remained  to  provoke  from 
the  frequenters  of  Ranelagh  and  the  Pantheon  a  revival  of 
the  witty  Lady  Townshend's  complaint — "  This  is  the  cheap- 
est family  to  see,  and  the  dearest  to  keep,  that  ever  was." 
The  member  of  that  family  who  lived  at  the  greatest  ex- 
pense, moral  and  pecuniary,  to  those  writh  whom  he  came  in 
contact  was  Henry,  Duke  of  Cumberland — the  hero  of  scan- 
dals so  frequent  and  so  clumsily  conducted  that,  as  long  as  his 
Royal  Highness  remained  a  bachelor,  his  damages  and  law- 
costs  seemed  likely  to  form  one  of  the  heaviest  items  in  the 
Civil  List.  He  met  his  fate,  however,  in  a  young  widow, 
whose  nearest  kinsman  had  recently  given  proof  of  a  courage 
more  than  equal  to  the  task  of  forbidding  the  most  childish 
of  libertines  to  play  the  fool  with  his  sister.  The  relief  of 
fashionable  society  at  learning  that  the  Duke  of  Cumberland 
was  safely  married  was  nothing  to  the  sense  of  epicurean 
enjoyment  with  which  Whigs  and  Wilkites  heard  that  the 
bride's  brother  was  no  other  than  that  gallant  colonel  whom 
the  Court  had  appointed  member  for  Middlesex.  Junius  was 
divided  between  terror  lest  a  Luttrell  should  succeed  to  the 
crown  of  England  and  sombre  merriment  over  the  master- 
stroke of  irony  by  which  destiny  had  avenged  him  and  his 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  395 

printer  upon  their  implacable  enemy.1  In  a  public  letter  he 
called  upon  the  injured  freeholders  of  Middlesex  to  rejoice 
because  a  greater  than  themselves  had  now  experienced  what 
it  was  to  have  Luttrells  forced  upon  him  against  his  will;  and, 
writing  confidentially  to  Wilkes  in  terms  which,  even  after 
the  lapse  of  a  century,  respect  for  the  sceptre  does  not  permit 
to  be  quoted,  he  urged  that  a  deputation  from  the  City  should 
at  once  repair  to  St.  James's  with  an  address  congratulating 
his  Majesty  on  the  auspicious  event  that  had  taken  place  in 
his  family. 

The  king's  feelings  were  such  that  the  ponderous  imperti- 
nences of  Junius  could  not  make  him  more  angry  than  he 
was  already.  Just  a  year  before,  when  it  became  necessary 
that  he  should  take  notice  of  his  brother's  irregularities,  he 
had  treated  the  painful  subject  as  became  a  high-minded  and 
right-minded  man  ;2  but  though  he  sternly  rebuked  the  sin, 
he  had  not  thought  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  withdraw  his 
countenance  from  the  offender.  The  Duke  of  Cumberland, 
however,  was  now  to  discover  that  little  as  George  the  Third 
approved  his  conduct  towards  the  wives  of  others,  he  had 
committed  a  crime  of  deeper  dye  in  procuring  himself  a  wife 
of  his  own.  Profligacy  might  be  forgiven  ;  but  there  was  no 
pardon  for  the  step  by  which  alone  the  profligate  could  ever 
be  reclaimed.  Nor  can  the  freedom  with  which  the  king 
gave  vent  to  his  irritation  be  explained  by  his  contempt  for 
the  levity  of  his  brother,  and  his  resentment  at  the  designing 
ambition  of  his  brother's  wife ;  for  his  wrath  was  still  hotter 
against  a  pair  of  lovers  whose  character  gave  them  a  claim  to 
respect  which  had  been  strengthened,  rather  than  forfeited, 
by  their  behavior  under  circumstances  as  trying  as  any  in 
which  two  human  beings  can  find  themselves  implicated. 

1  Junius  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  November  23, 1771. 

3  "I  cannot  enough  express,"  he  wrote  in  November,  1770,  with  refer- 
ence to  the  Duke  of  Cumberland's  most  notorious  transgression,  "  how 
much  I  feel  at  being  in  the  least  concerned  in  an  affair  that  my  way  of 
thinking  has  ever  taught  me  to  behold  as  highly  improper;  but  I  flatter 
myself  the  truths  I  have  thought  it  incumbent  to  utter  may  be  of  some 
use  in  his  future  conduct." 


396  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  X. 

The  Duke  of  Gloucester,  as  far  back  as  September,  1766, 
had  been  privately  married  to  the  widow  of  LordWaldegrave 
— that  wise  and  upright  man  who,  alone  among  the  guardians 
of  George  the  Third's  childhood,  did  anything  but  harm  to  a 
prince  whose  nature  he  so  clearly  read,  and  the  deficiences  of 
whose  so-called  education  he  so  honestly  labored  to  supple- 
ment. Gratitude  and  esteem  may  have  been  the  strongest 
feelings  which  attracted  Lady  Waldegrave  into  her  first  mar- 
riage •  but  her  second  was  a  true  love-match.  The  natural 
child  of  Sir  Edward  Walpole,  she  was  so  far  from  coveting 
a  royal  connection,  for  royalty's  sake,  that  she  shrank  from 
honors  which  could  not  fail  to  bring  into  prominence  the 
story  of  her  birth.1  That  misfortune  apart,  she  was  wanting 
in  nothing  which  could  justify  the  choice  of  her  husband  or 
mollify  the  displeasure  of  her  brother-in-law.  She  was  the 
favorite  sitter  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  by  whom  her  portrait 
was  seven  times  eagerly  and  carefully  painted  in  every  stage 
of  her  beauty ;  and  when,  in  our  own  time,  the  papers  of  the 
great  artist  were  brought  to  light,  a  lock  of  golden-brown 
hair  marked  as  hers  was  discovered  in  a  recess  of  his  pocket- 
book.  And  her  mind  was  not  unworthy  of  its  casket.  The 
constancy,  the  resignation,  the  touching  humility,  with  which 
she  endured  a  persecution  exquisitely  calculated  to  aggravate 
everything  that  was  most  distressing  in  her  situation,  gave 
value  and  beauty  to  letters  which  were  fondly  pronounced  to 
be  inimitable  by  the  best  judge  of  letters  that  ever  lived.  "  I 
have  always  thought,"  said  Horace  Walpole,  after  reading  the 
lines  in  which  the  Duchess  of  Gloucester  confessed  the  mar- 
riage to  her  father,  "  that  feeling  bestows  the  most  sublime 
eloquence,  and  that  women  write  better  letters  than  men.  I, 
a  writer  in  some  esteem,  and  all  my  life  a  letter-writer,  never 
penned  anything  like  this  letter  of  my  niece.  How  mean 
did  my  prudence  appear  compared  with  hers,  which  was  void 
of  all  personal  considerations  but  of  her  honor !"     Walpole, 

1  "  She  asked  me,"  said  her  uncle  Horace,  u  if  I  did  not  approve  of  her 
signing  '  Maria  Gloucester,'  instead  of  simply  '  Maria,'  in  the  royal  style ; 
'for,'  said  she,  modestly, '  there  was  a  time  when  I  had  no  right  to  any 
name  but  Maria.' " 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  397 

however,  in  so  saying,  did  himself  scanty  justice;  for  his 
promptitude  in  ranging  himself  on  the  side  of  the  weak,  and 
his  high-bred  plain-dealing  with  the  strong,  proved  that  age 
and  illness  had  done  nothing  to  impair  that  stoutness  of  heart 
which,  as  often  as  his  sense  of  honor  or  of  justice  was  aroused, 
never  failed  to  show  that  he  was  Sir  Robert's  son.1 

From  boyhood  upwards,  as  Lord  Waldegrave  noted,  and  as 
his  widow  was  destined  to  feel,  George  the  Third  was  never 
angry  without  something  coming  of  it.2  The  knowledge  of 
what  one  brother  had  just  done,  and  the  suspicion  of  what 
another  had  done  long  ago,  determined  the  king  to  a  course 
of  action  most  characteristic  of  its  author  in  boldness  of  con- 
ception and  inflexibility  of  execution.  There  was  no  ques- 
tion but  that  the  younger  members  of  the  royal  family  were 
defenceless,  as  far  as  the  law  could  defend  them,  against  the 
matrimonial  schemes  of  adventurers  and  adventuresses.  In 
1753  they  had  been  exempted  from  the  protection  of  the  Mar- 
riage Act  by  the  special  desire  of  George  the  Second;  and 
George  the  Third,  correcting  the  omission  of  his  predecessor, 
now  made  up  his  mind  to  protect  them  with  a  vengeance.  It 
would  have  been  a  very  easy  matter  to  devise  means  by  which 
princes  and  princesses  might  be  shielded  from  the  dangers  of 

1  "  I  wrote  to  Lord  Hertford  a  letter  which  I  meant  he  should  show  to 
the  king,  couched  in  the  most  respectful  terms,  in  which  I  stated  my  own 
ignorance  of  the  marriage  till  owned,  but  said  that,  concluding  the  new 
duchess's  family  could  not  be  very  welcome  at  St.  James's,  I  should  not 
presume  to  present  myself  there  without  leave.  I  mentioned  having 
waited  on  the  duke  as  a  duty,  due  for  the  honor  he  had  done  the  family, 
and  to  the  tenderness  I  had  always  felt  for  my  niece,  whom  were  I  to 
abandon  I  should  expect  his  Majesty's  own  paternal  affections  would 
make  him  despise  me.  This  letter  I  enclosed  in  a  cover  in  which  I  told 
Lord  Hertford  plainly  that  if  it  was  expected  I  should  not  see  my  niece, 
I  was  determined  rather  to  give  up  going  to  St.  James's." 

3  "  Whenever  he  is  displeased,"  wrote  Lord  Waldegrave  of  his  royal 
pupil,  "  his  anger  does  not  break  out  with  heat  and  violence,  but  he  be- 
comes sullen  and  silent,  and  retires  to  his  closet,  not  to  compose  his  mind 
by  study  and  contemplation,  but  merely  to  indulge  the  melancholy  en- 
joyment of  his  own  ill-humor.  Even  when  the  fit  is  ended,  unfavorable 
symptoms  very  frequently  return  which  indicate  that  on  certain  occasions 
his  Royal  Highness  has  too  correct  a  memory." 


398  THE  EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  X. 

their  own  ignorance  and  imprudence  till  they  had  reached 
the  age  of  discretion,  and  by  which,  if  they  then  persisted  in 
ruining  themselves,  the  nation  might  be  preserved  from  suf- 
fering by  their  folly.  A  short  act,  giving  their  parents  and 
guardians  power  over  the  actions  of  those  among  them  who 
were  not  yet  of  age,  and  requiring  the  consent  of  Parliament 
to  the  marriage  of  all  who  came  within  a  reasonable  distance 
of  the  throne,  would  not  have  needed  a  Mansfield  to  draft  or 
a  Thurlow  and  a  Wedderburn  to  expound  and  advocate.  But 
the  aim  which  George  the  Third  had  in  view  was  not  to  as- 
sure the  succession  to  the  crown,  but  to  extend  the  authority 
of  the  individual  who  wore  it.  The  preamble  of  the  bill — 
which  he  had  resolved  to  turn  into  a  statute,  even  if  he  stood 
alone  as  its  sincere  supporter — asserted  (or,  as  the  Whigs  main- 
tained, invented)  the  doctrine  that  the  right  of  approving  or 
forbidding  marriages  in  the  royal  family  had  always  been  in- 
trusted to  the  reigning  monarch ;  and  the  substance  of  the 
enactment  was  of  a  piece  with  its  exordium.  The  occupant 
of  the  throne,  whatever  his  age,  whatever  his  inexperience, 
might  follow  his  own  fancy  in  the  selection  of  a  consort.  The 
occupant  of  the  throne,  whatever  his  character,  whatever  his 
antecedents,  was  appointed  confidant  and  arbiter  of  the  love- 
affairs  of  scores  and  hundreds  of  people,  the  rank  and  status 
of  whose  wives  and  husbands,  in  the  vast  majority  of  instances, 
concerned  the  public  interests  no  more  than  if  they  had  been 
so  many  tradesmen  or  mechanics.  No  descendant  of  George 
the  Second,  to  the  end  of  time,  unless  he  were  by  birth  a  for- 
eigner, might  marry  before  six-and-twenty  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  sovereign,  unless  he  was  prepared  to  see  his  chil- 
dren stamped  as  illegitimate,  and  their  mother  excluded  from 
the  recognition  of  society.1     And  where  "  the  king's  poor 

1  The  pleasantest  thing  said  or  written  on  the  most  unpleasant  of  sub- 
jects was  the  answer  to  Dowdeswell's  objection  that  a  prince,  who  might 
reign  at  eighteen,  was  not  allowed  to  marry  as  he  liked  till  six-and-twen- 
ty.  The  obvious  retort  that  it  was  easier  to  rule  a  kingdom  than  a  wife 
made  matter  for  an  epigram,  in  the  shape  of  a  conversation  between  the 
Dick  and  Tom  whom  the  rather  vulgar  taste  of  our  ancestors  had  adopt- 
ed as  representatives  of  the  Rums  and  Caecilianus  of  Martial. 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  399 

cousin  "  was  a  woman,  a  consequence  was  threatened  which 
George  the  Third,  when  he  insisted  on  transmitting  to  his 
successors  the  privilege  that  he  claimed  for  himself,  can  hard- 
ly have  foreseen.  Nothing  but  the  good-fortune  of  our  royal 
house  has  spared  it  a  state  of  things  under  which  girls  would 
have  had  no  choice  but  to  disclose  their  fondest  aifections 
and  their  most  cherished  hopes  to  the  inquisition  of  a  volup- 
tuary whose  threshold  no  respectable  matron  would  submit 
to  cross.  The  bill,  which  never  could  have  been  popular,  had 
the  additional  misfortune  of  being  introduced  on  the  morrow 
of  a  domestic  catastrophe  with  which  Europe  was  ringing. 
Those  horrible  tidings  which  arrived  from  Denmark  on  the 
twenty-ninth  of  January,  1772,  were  strange  data  on  which  to 
ground  the  necessity  for  a  law  framed  with  the  express  object 
of  insuring  that,  thenceforward  and  forever,  royalty  should 
only  mate  with  royalty.  The  most  hardened  men  of  the  world 
confessed  to  being  shocked  when,  with  such  news  barely  three 
weeks  old,  the  wretched  Caroline's  brother  invited  his  Parlia- 
ment to  consider  a  scheme  of  legislation  under  which  British 
princesses  might  have  to  choose  between  a  lifetime  of  celi- 
bacy and  an  ill-assorted  official  union  like  that  which  just  then 
was  dissolving  amidst  a  scene  of  blood  and  misery  such  as  could 
be  paralleled  only  in  the  imagination  of  the  dramatist.1 

Harder  men  of  the  world  than  the  members  of  his  govern- 
ment the  king  must  have  gone  far  afield  to  seek ;  and  even 
they  quailed  at  the  work  which  lay  before  them.  Lord  Mans- 
field, who  had  drawn  the  bill,  was  the  only  ministerialist  lead- 
er who  did  not  hint  dislike  of  it  when  on  his  legs  and  openly 
abuse  it  in  his  cups  ;2  but  his  share  of  the  task  was  compara- 

1  Surprise  was  expressed  in  society  that  so  good  a  courtier  as  Garrick 
bad  given  "  Hamlet w  within  a  twelvemonth  of  the  real  tragedy  at  Elsinore. 
"  It  is  difficult,"  wrote  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  in  his  essay  on  Struensee, 
"to  contain  the  indignation  which  naturally  arises  from  the  reflection 
that  at  this  very  time,  and  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the  fate  of  the  Queen 
of  Denmark,  the  Royal  Marriage  Act  was  passed  in  England  for  the  avow- 
ed purpose  of  preventing  the  only  marriages  of  preference  which  a  prin- 
cess, at  least,  has  commonly  the  opportunity  of  forming." 

8  "  One  thing  remarkable  is,"  wrote  Lord  Shelburne  to  Chatham,  "  that 
the  king  has  not  a  servant  in  either  House,  except  the  Chief-justice  of 


400  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  X. 

tively  a  light  one.  The  Marriage  Bill  had  an  easy  journey 
through  a  House  of  Peers  from  which  Chatham  was  detained 
by  a  "  winter  account  of  gout,  to  be  balanced  after  a  summer 
of  health  "  such  as  he  had  not  known  for  twenty  years,  and 
where  the  Episcopal  bench  supplied  a  casuist  who  had  the 
nerve  to  descant  volubly  and  minutely  upon  those  features  in 
the  controversy  which  such  laymen  as  Sandwich  and  Wey- 
mouth avoided  as  indelicate.1  But  the  debating  in  the  Lords 
was  not  altogether  unproductive  of  good;  for  an  admirable 
protest,  with  the  names  of  Richmond  and  Fitzwilliam  at  the 
head  of  the  signatures,  served  as  a  brief  to  indicate  the  lines 
on  which  the  question  was  subsequently  fought  in  the  Com- 
mons. The  skilled  constitutional  speakers  of  the  Lower  House 
dwelt  with  unanswerable  force  on  the  confusion  that  might 
ensue  if  the  power  of  altering  the  order  of  succession,  by  an- 
nulling a  marriage  and  declaring  its  issue  illegitimate,  fell 
into  the  hands  of  a  monarch  who  had  favorites  among  his 
sons ;  on  the  untenable  character  of  the  assumption  that  such 
a  power  had  always  belonged  of  right  to  the  wearer  of  the 
crown ;  and  on  the  certainty  that  Englishmen  would  prefer 
the  offspring  of  a  prince  who,  with  or  without  leave,  had  mar- 
ried an  Englishwoman  to  the  offspring  of  a  princess  who  had 
been  duly  and  solemnly  handed  over  to  the  nephew  of  an 

the  King's  Bench  can  be  called  so,  who  will  own  the  bill,  or  who  has  re- 
frained from  every  public  insinuation  against  it."  A  few  days  before  the 
measure  finally  passed  the  Commons,  Wedderbum  was  dining  with  Fox 
and  other  senatorial  dandies.  "  They  got  drunk,  and  Wedderbum  blab- 
bed that  he  and  Thurlow  had  each  drawn  the  plan  of  an  unexceptiona- 
ble bill,  but  that  Lord  Mansfield  had  said  they  were  both  nonsense,  had 
rejected  them,  and  then  himself  drew  the  present  bill.  '  And,  damn  him,' 
added  Wedderbum,  'when  he  called  my  bill  nonsense,  did  he  think  I 
would  defend  him  V  " 

1  The  Bishop  of  Oxford's  exposition  of  the  moral  danger  of  preventing 
men  of  high  rank  from  making  marriages  of  inclination  was  answered  by 
his  brother  of  Gloucester  in  a  strain  which  awakened  the  disgust  of  all 
who  remembered  the  almost  blasphemous  fervor  of  his  invectives  against 
the  "  Essay  on  Woman,"  and  pleased  nobody  except  a  few  loose-lived  peers. 
Now  that  he  had  the  bishop's  sanction,  said  an  earl  who  had  more  wit 
than  grace,  he  should  drive  with  his  chariot  and  liveries  to  places  whith- 
er he  had  hitherto  been  in  the  habit  of  going  incognito. 


1772-74.]  CIIAKLES  JAMES  FOX.  401 

elector  or  the  younger  son  of  a  landgrave,  even  if  that  pref- 
erence could  only  be  vindicated  at  the  expense  of  a  revolu- 
tion. "  Laws,"  said  Burke,  "  have  till  now  been  passed  for 
the  purpose  of  explaining  doubts ;  but  this  is  a  law  made  to 
create  them  ;"  and  then  he  turned  from  the  perils  in  which 
the  proposed  measure  would  involve  the  State  to  the  hard- 
ship which  it  would  inflict  upon  the  individual.  Proudly 
conscious  that  the  truest  proof  of  loyalty  was  to  save  the  king 
from  himself,  and  resolved  that,  if  in  after-years  the  sons  of 
George  the  Third  were  driven  into  courses  like  those  from 
which  their  uncle  had  just  been  rescued  by  a  marriage  such 
as  they  themselves  would  be  forbidden  to  make,1  their  father 
should  only  have  himself  to  blame,  the  orator,  who  had  so 
often  withstood  the  prerogative  in  its  encroachments  upon 
liberty,  now  exclaimed  against  its  exaltation  at  the  cost  of  our 
common  humanity.  Amidst  the  breathless  attention  of  friend 
and  foe,  he  closed  a  magnificent  rhapsody  with  a  stroke  of 
histrionic  effect  more  spontaneous,  and  therefore  more  im- 
pressive, than  the  dagger  scene  which  was  the  most  famous, 
but  far  from  the  most  happy,  example  of  his  later  manner. 
Making  as  if  he  saw  the  lord-chief-justice  himself,  pen  in 
hand,  on  the  floor  before  him — "  He  has  no  child,"  he  cried, 
"  who  first  formed  this  bill.  He  is  no  judge  of  the  crime  of 
following  nature." 

The  ministers,  few  of  whom  had  lived  after  a  fashion  which 
gave  them  a  sense  of  security  at  a  time  when  such  personali- 
ties were  flying  about,  maintained,  for  the  most  part,  a  prudent 
silence;  and  even  the  king's  friends  could  with  difficulty  be 
got  to  say  a  word  in  favor  of  a  measure  which,  except  in  a 
speech,  no  man  ever  called  by  any  other  name  than  the  King's 
Bill.  Conway,  who  was  so  far  a  minister  that  he  acted  as  mas- 
ter-general of  the  ordnance — though  he  had  declined  to  accept 
the  salary  and  the  title  of  an  office  the  work  of  which  he  was 
doing  in  a  spirit  worthy  of  a  purer  age — refused  to  flatter  the 

1  The  objects  sought  by  the  Marriage  Act,  and  its  consequences  to  the 
next  generation  of  the  royal  family,  are  stated  by  Mr.  Massey,  with  excel- 
lent taste  and  feeling,  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  his  u  History  of  England 
under  George  the  Third." 

26 


402  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  X. 

House  of  Commons  by  pretending  that  in  entertaining  the 
proposal  of  the  cabinet  it  was  actuated  by  a  feeling  of  public 
duty.  "  Were  I  capable,"  he  cried,  "  of  paying  compliments 
on  this  occasion,  I  should  think  my  tongue  would  wither  in 
my  mouth."  And,  indeed,  the  temper  of  his  audience  was 
such  that  anything  might  have  been  spoken  with  impunity. 
The  supporters  of  the  government,  as  fathers  and  husbands, 
were  in  a  mood  to  pardon  the  most  extreme  violence  of  lan- 
guage that  could  be  directed  against  a  law  for  which,  as  place- 
men, they  were  prepared  to  vote.  When  Lord  North,  by 
turning  the  debate  on  to  a  point  of  order,  attempted  to  evade 
an  attack  which  his  boldest  colleagues  could  not  be  prevailed 
on  to  face,  so  decorous  an  ex-official  as  Mr.  Thomas  Townshend 
was  heard  to  shout,  "  Let  us  have  no  dirty  tricks."  In  the 
dearth  of  oratorical  courage  which  seemed  likely  to  endanger 
the  fortunes  of  the  bill,  and  possibly  of  the  ministry,  the 
Speaker,  whose  faults  were  not  in  the  direction  of  timidity,  was 
induced  to  descend  into  the  lists ;  but  he  was  no  sooner  back 
beneath  his  canopy  than  he  found  himself  pelted  with  sar- 
casms against  which  his  character  afforded  him  the  scantiest 
protection.  "Consider,  sir,"  said  Burke,  "that  the  bill  will 
operate  when  you  shall  be  enjoying  in  another  world  the  re- 
wards of  a  life  well  spent  in  this  " — a  glance  into  the  future 
much  appreciated  by  an  assembly  which  had  observed  noth- 
ing in  Sir  Fletcher  Norton's  parliamentary  career  inconsistent 
with  the  reputation  for  taking  fees  from  both  sides  that  he 
had  acquired  during  his  practice  at  the  bar.  And  the  House 
cheered  like  a  parcel  of  insubordinate  schoolboys  when  Barre, 
availing  himself  still  more  freely  of  the  form  of  addressing 
the  chair,  in  order  to  talk  at  its  occupant,  gave  vent,  with  a 
breadth  of  phrase  in  which  the  contemporaries  of  Smollett 
saw  nothing  amiss,  to  the  most  astounding  impertinence  that 
the  member  of  a  senate  ever  ventured  to  level  against  its 
president.1 

But  the  reluctance  of  the  cabinet  was  not  proof  against  the 
determination  of  the  Court.     The  author  of  the  Eoyal  Mar- 

1  Last  Journals  of  Walpole,  March  11,1772. 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  EOX.  403 

riage  Bill  would  as  soon  have  withdrawn  it  because  his  min- 
isters were  afraid  of  the  House  of  Commons  as  his  uncle  of 
Cumberland  would  have  altered  his  tactics  at  Culloden  for 
fear  lest  his  colonels  should  be  nervous  under  fire.  In  thirteen 
letters,  brief  and  peremptory  as  the  slips  of  paper  which  an 
aide-de-camp  carries  along  the  line  of  battle,  George  the  Third, 
throughout  the  whole  duration  of  the  contest,  dictated  to  Lord 
North  the  orders  of  the  day.  Nothing  could  be  better  adapt- 
ed to  the  purpose  which  they  were  intended  to  effect  than  the 
king's  exhortations  to  sustained  and  vigorous  action,  than  the 
clear  and  practical  suggestions  with  which  he  met  every 
change  of  strategy  on  the  part  of  the  Opposition  leaders,  and 
than  the  threats  against  deserters  and  sluggards  from  which 
the  prime-minister  was  permitted  to  draw  a  salutary  warning 
for  his  own  guidance.  "Lord  North's  attention,"  wrote  his 
Majesty,  "  in  correcting  the  impression  I  had  that  Colonel 
Burgoyne  and  Lieutenant-colonel  Harcourt  were  absent  yes- 
terday is  very  handsome  to  those  gentlemen ;  for  I  certainly 
should  have  thought  myself  obliged  to  have  named  a  new 
governor  in  the  room  of  the  former,  and  to  have  removed  the 
other  from  my  bedchamber."  Conway  was  pitilessly  bullied 
through  his  brother,  the  lord  chamberlain ;  and  less  formida- 
ble defaulters  were  punished  by  his  Majesty  in  person  at  a 
drawing-room  which  was  held  while  the  fate  of  the  bill  was 
still  uncertain.  But  no  stress  of  discipline  could  keep  the 
ministerial  ranks  from  melting  away  at  a  rate  of  decrease  that 
terrified  the  drill-sergeants  of  the  Treasury.  A  measure  which 
had  passed  the  second  reading  by  two  hundred  and  sixty-eight 
votes  to  one  hundred  and  forty  was  hustled  through  its  final 
stage  by  a  bare  majority  of  eighteen ;  while  among  the  knot 
of  members  who  stood  grumbling  on  the  wrong  side  of  the 
door,  no  less  tlian  twelve  out  of  fourteen  had  missed  by  a 
minute  the  satisfaction  of  yet  further  swelling  the  numbers 
of  the  Opposition. 

The  discussion  had  all  along  been  conducted  in  the  utmost 
secrecy.  Peers  begged  in  vain  for  admittance ;  and  reporters 
were  so  rigidly  excluded  that  a  debate  of  ten  hours  hardly 
provided  the  newspapers  with  material  for  a  score  of  lines. 


404       *  THE   EA11LY  HISTOKY   OF  [Chai\X. 

The  danger  to  liberty  of  concealing  the  proceedings  in  Par- 
liament from  the  public  gaze  was  forcibly  illustrated  by  the 
apathy  displayed  by  a  high-spirited  people  towards  a  con- 
troversy which  stirred  a  submissive  House  of  Commons  to  the 
verge  of  revolt.  The  unpopularity  of  the  Marriage  Bill  was 
confined  to  London  society ;  and  the  sentiment,  strong  every- 
where within  those  narrow  limits,  had  the  focus  of  its  intensity 
in  Lord  Holland's  domestic  circle.  For  there  the  family  tra- 
ditions were  all  against  arbitrary  restrictions  upon  the  freedom 
of  marriage,  and  the  family  character  was  instinctively  opposed 
to  any  restraint  being  placed  upon  the  impulses  of  human  nat- 
ure. The  offspring  of  a  runaway  match  with  a  descendant  of 
royalty,  Charles  Fox  was  not  the  man  to  prescribe  by  statute 
the  level  above  which  a  lad  of  spirit  was  forbidden  to  lift  his 
eyes.  The  nephew  of  one  who,  but  for  the  interference  of 
Bute  and  the  Princess  Eoyal,  would  at  that  moment  have  been 
Queen  of  England,  he  scorned  to  vote  in  obedient  silence  for 
a  measure  inspired  (so  the  world  believed)  by  the  influence  of 
that  very  pair  who  had  stood  between  his  kinswoman  and  the 
throne.  That  the  suitor  of  Lady  Sarah  Lennox  should  make 
it  a  crime  for  his  own  sons  to  marry  a  subject  was  regarded 
at  Holland  House  as  an  act  of  treason  against  reminiscences 
which  ten  years  should  have  been  too  short  to  profane.  "  I 
should  not,"  Fox  wrote  to  the  Earl  of  Upper  Ossory,  "  have 
resigned  at  this  moment  merely  on  account  of  my  complaints 
against  Lord  North,  if  I  had  not  determined  to  vote  against 
this  Eoyal  Family  Bill,  which  in  place  I  should  be  ashamed  of 
doing.  Upon  the  whole,  I  am  convinced  I  did  right ;  and  I 
think  myself  very  safe  from  going  into  opposition,  which  is 
the  only  danger.  I  am  convinced,  if  you  were  to  know  the 
whole  state  of  the  case,  I  should  have  your  approbation,  which, 
I  can  assure  you,  would  make  me  very  happy."  But,  however 
much  he  might  covet  the  esteem  of  his  relative,  the  young 
fellow  did  not  choose  to  make  himself  out  more  disinterested 
than  lie  was.  His  letter  was  embedded  in  a  mass  of  prefaces, 
postscripts,  and  comments  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  John  Craw- 
ford, his  confidant  and  sworn  admirer,  who  very  frankly  dis- 
closed to  Lord  Ossory  those  views  and  feelings,  of  a  personal 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  405 

rather  than  a  public  nature,  which  were  among  the  forces  that 
contributed  their  weight  towards  driving  Fox  from  the  Ad- 
miralty. "  Charles,"  wrote  Crawford,  in  a  passage  which  Fox 
had  read  and  allowed  to  stand,  "  has  this  day  resigned.  He 
had  not  any  one  particular  reason  for  this  step  ;  but,  upon  the 
whole,  he  thought  Lord  North  did  not  treat  him  with  the  con- 
fidence and  attention  he  used  to  do.  It  is  better  to  err  by  too 
much  spirit  than  by  too  little;  and  as  Charles  does  not  mean 
to  go  into  opposition,  and  is  always  worth  a  better  place  than 
what  he  had,  it  is  my  opinion  that  what  he  has  done  will  do 
him  credit,  and  turn  out  to  his  advantage  every  way." 

That  opinion  was  not  shared  by  Lord  Holland.  It  was  be- 
lieved in  the  clubs  that  the  father  had  urged  the  son  to  quit 
the  government,  in  order  that  he  might  be  free  to  devote  him- 
self to  the  advancement  of  a  legislative  crotchet  which  the 
two  cultivated  in  common ;  "and  Charles"  (observed  Gibbon, 
in  one  of  those  sentences  which  render  his  "Memoirs"  the  fa- 
vorite book  of  readers  who  hold  the  secret  of  good  writing  to 
lie  in  saying  the  most  with  the  least  show  of  effort  and  expend- 
iture of  type)  "  very  judiciously  thought  that  Lord  Holland's 
friendship  imported  him  more  than  Lord  North's."  But  the 
town  had  not  got  the  right  story.  The  old  statesman  loved 
the  ministry,  and  had  reason  to  love  it,  as  little  as  the  world 
had  loved  him  when  he  was  himself  a  minister ;  but  he  came 
of  a  school  which  did  not  make  politics  an  affair  of  sentiment. 
"  Whatever  cause  of  ill-humor,"  said  the  third  Lord  Holland, 
"  my  grandfather  might  have,  it  was  not  probable  from  the 
habits  of  his  life  that  he  would  indulge  it  by  going  into  oppo- 
sition." As  a  matter  of  fact,  Lord  Holland's  dissatisfaction  at 
the  step  which  his  son  had  taken  came  as  near  displeasure  as 
was  possible  with  Charles  for  the  object  of  it.  But  his  annoy- 
ance was  nothing  to  Lord  North's  alarm.  If  it  had  been  a 
secretary  of  state,  with  half  a  dozen  cousins  in  the  House  of 
Lords  and  a  score  of  clients  in  the  Commons,  threatening  to 
take  himself  and  his  connection  into  the  camp  of  the  enemy, 
the  prime-minister  could  not  have  been  more  perturbed  than 
at  the  desertion  of  a  junior  lord  whose  property  was  a  great 
deal  less  than  nothing,  and  whose  party  consisted  of  a  brother 


406  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

and  a  couple  of  schoolfellows.  North  was  instant  with  Fox 
to  withdraw  his  resignation,  and  profuse  in  such  apologies  for 
his  own  real  or  fancied  incivility  as  are  seldom  offered  by  the 
head  of  the  Board  of  Treasury  to  the  lowest  on  the  Board  of 
Admiralty.  But  the  young  gentleman,  before  he  wTent  to  the 
interview,  had  announced  his  intention  of  leaving  office  to 
those  among  his  acquaintance  whom  he  deemed  worthy  of 
the  information  ;  and  his  self-respect  would  not  allow  him  to 
surrender  himself  to  the  unfamiliar  process  of  being  talked 
over.  As  soon  as  it  became  plain  that  there  was  no  hope  of 
keeping  him,  a  panic  ensued  in  the  higher  circles  of  the  State. 
Lord  Temple,  who  had  wished  to  get  rid  of  the  Marriage  Bill 
without  upsetting  the  cabinet,  went  three  times  to  Court  for 
the  purpose  of  assuring  his  Majesty  that,  much  as  he  disliked 
the  proposed  law,  he  would  do  nothing  to  weaken  a  ministry 
which  had  received  so  paralyzing  a  shock ;  and  Lord  Mans- 
field hastened  to  expunge  the  most  objectionable  feature  in 
his  original  draft  of  a  measure  which  was  within  twenty-four 
hours  of  being  submitted  to  Parliament,  in  order  to  provide 
the  large  contingent  of  peers  whom  the  defection  of  Charles 
Fox  had  frightened  back  into  their  allegiance  with  a  decent 
excuse  for  supporting  the  government.1 

The  sacrifice  did  something  towards  reconciling  the  Mar- 
riage Act  with  the  laws  of  humanity ;  but  it  entirely  failed  to 
propitiate  Fox.  His  first  speech  wTas  in  so  moderate,  and  even 
subdued,  a  tone  that  Burke  remarked  that  the  dissent  of  some 
gentlemen  was  the  opposition  of  half  an  hour.    But  the  young 


1  The  bill,  as  it  was  drawn,  made  the  consent  of  the  sovereign  a 
necessary  condition  for  the  validity  of  a  marriage  contracted  by  any 
descendant  of  George  the  Second  during  the  term  of  his  or  her 
natural  life.  The  first  fruit  of  Fox's  resignation  was,  that  members  of 
the  royal  family  were  allowed  to  marry  at  the  age  of  six-and-twenty, 
unless  both  Houses  of  Parliament  interfered  with  an  express  vote  of  dis- 
approval. 

Till  Fox,  by  going  out,  made  the  Marriage  Bill  a  stand-and-fall  ques- 
tion, few  expected  that  it  would  ever  become  law.  According  to  a  para- 
graph in  the  newspapers,  a  peer  had  laid  five  thousand  guineas  to  one 
thousand  against  its  passing. 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  407 

ex-official  belonged  to  a  class  in  whom  self-control  is,  for  their 
adversaries,  the  most  dangerous  of  symptoms.  Long  before 
the  bill  left  the  Commons,  Fox,  by  a  succession  of  attacks 
upon  Sir  Fletcher  Norton,  had  proved  that  he  possessed  in 
the  highest  excellence  two  supreme  qualifications  of  the  ora- 
tor— the  art  of  assailing  a  bad  cause  in  the  person  of  a  ques- 
tionable individual,  and  the  art  of  bringing  home  to  the  mind, 
without  inflicting  the  forms  of  a  moral  lecture  upon  the  ear, 
a  clear  notion  of  the  connection  between  the  passing  contro- 
versy of  the  day  and  those  eternal  principles  of  right  and 
wrong  which  men  of  all  parties  profess  to  venerate.  He  soon 
established  over  the  ministerial  speakers  the  marked  superior- 
ity in  questions  of  detail  which  a  disputant  who  has  mastered 
principles  never  fails  to  obtain  over  antagonists  who  have 
begged  them.  Following  Thurlow  and  Wedderburn,  closely 
and  warily,  from  point  to  point;  enticing  them  into  indefensi- 
ble positions,  and  suddenly  turning  and  pushing  them  fiercely 
until  they  yielded  in  confusion ;  eliciting  from  them  contra- 
dictory admissions  and  assertions,  and  then  warning  a  silent 
and  all  but  repentant  House  that  this  was  the  first  penal  law 
which  had  ever  been  passed  with  the  lawyers  differing ;  forc- 
ing the  attorney-general  to  take  refuge  in  a  vague  but  hum- 
ble confession  that  the  bill  would  need  to  be  altered  "accord- 
ing as  exigencies  should  arise" — Fox  honestly  and  laboriously 
earned  the  enthusiastic  applause  that  greeted  his  fine  rhetorical 
description  of  the  "glorious  uncertainty  which  always  attends 
the  law."  There  was  joy  in  Kensington  and  at  King's  Gate 
over  the  notable  success  with  which  this  chip  of  the  old  block 
had  taken  up  the  paternal  quarrel  with  the  gentlemen  of  the 
long  robe,  who  had  enjoyed  an  easy  time  in  the  Commons 
ever  since  Henry  Fox  had  succumbed  to  gout  and  unpopu- 
larity. And  patriots  of  a  very  different  cast  from  Lord  Hol- 
land rejoiced  to  observe  that  the  young  statesman  spoke  bet- 
ter in  proportion  as  his  cause  was  good ;  and  that,  as  an  ex- 
ponent of  the  feelings  and  convictions  of  the  wiser  and  more 
thoughtful  among  his  fellow-countrymen,  he  rose  quietly  and 
naturally  to  a  strain  which  he  had  never  compassed  in  the 
days  when  he  obeyed  the  bent  of  his  own  humors  and  preju- 


408  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

dices.  It  was  generally  and  willingly  admitted  that,  as  a  force 
in'politics,  "Fox's  logic"  was  equivalent  to  Burke's  power  of 
moving  the  passions,  and  to  the  persuasive  influence  of  Con- 
way's example  and  character ;  and  the  veterans  of  the  House, 
employing  the  most  valued  and  envied  compliment  which  in 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  one  English  gentle- 
man could  bestow  upon  another,  declared  that,  as  "  a  Parlia- 
ment man,"  Charles  Fox  at  three-and- twenty  excelled  Charles 
Townshend  in  his  maturity. 

The  feeling  which  inspired  the  most  prominent  opponent 
of  the  Royal  Marriage  Bill  was  no  hasty  or  isolated  impulse. 
It  was  intimately  allied  to  a  sentiment  which,  springing  natu- 
rally in  such  a  disposition  as  that  of  Fox,  profoundly  affected 
his  literary  judgment,  altered  the  whole  current  of  his  later 
life,  and  at  this  particular  period  directed,  and  almost  monop- 
olized, his  political  energies.  The  member  and  the  idol  of  a 
society  whose  mode  of  talking  on  the  most  delicate  of  topics 
was  such  as  it  is  more  seemly  to  condemn  in  general  terms 
than  to  illustrate  by  selected  quotations — and  credited,  as  a 
young  man,  with  living  after  the  fashion  in  which  an  unmar- 
ried associate  of  March  and  Selwyn  might  not  uncharitably 
be  assumed  to  live — he  never  caught  the  tone  of  cynicism 
which  was  the  fashion  among  the  men  of  his  circle ;  and  still 
less  was  his  secret  and  unspoken  creed  akin  to  theirs.  He  had 
been  brought  up  in  a  home  where  intense  and  tender  conjugal 
affection  was  rendered  doubly  attractive  by  the  presence  of 
good  sense,  and  that  perfect  good-breeding  which  is  uncon- 
scious of  its  own  existence ;  and  his  favorite  books,  from  child- 
hood upwards,  were  those  in  which  the  image  of  such  a  home 
was  painted  in  the  brightest  colors  and  gilded  by  the  noblest 
associations.  He  loved  Homer,  because  Homer  "  always  spoke 
well  of  women."  In  the  teeth  of  Athenian  prejudice,  which 
so  good  a  scholar  respected  more  than  the  prejudices  of  his 
own  day,  he  could  hardly  venture  to  give  the  same  reason  for 
loving  Euripides ;  but  probably  no  one  ever  praised,  read,  re- 
cited, analyzed,  and  translated  any  piece  of  poetry  so  frequent- 
ly, for  the  benefit  of  so  many  different  individuals,  as  did  Fox 
the  passage  where  Alcestis,  before  her  act  of  self-sacrifice,  takes 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  409 

leave  of  her  bridal-chamber.1  And  his  romance  was  of  the 
heart,  and  not  of  the  fancy.  There  have  been  few  better 
husbands  than  Fox,  and  probably  none  so  delightful ;  for  no 
known  man  ever  devoted  such  powers  of  pleasing  to  the  sin- 
gle end  of  making  a  wife  happy.  When  once  he  had  a  home 
of  his  own,  the  world  outside,  with  its  pleasures  and  ambitions, 
became  to  him  an  object  of  indifference,  and  at  last  of  repug- 
nance. Nothing  but  the  stings  of  a  patriotic  conscience, 
sharpened  by  the  passionate  importunity  of  partisans  whose 
fidelity  had  entitled  them  to  an  absolute  claim  upon  his  ser- 
vices, could  prevail  upon  him  to  spend  opposite,  or  even  on, 
the  Treasury  bench  an  occasional  fragment  of  the  hours 
which  were  never  long  enough  when  passed  at  Mrs.  Fox's 
work-table  with  Congreve  or  Moliere  as  a  third  in  company.2 

1  In  180G  he  lent  the  "  Alcestis"  to  his  young  secretary  without  telling 
him  that  there  was  anything  exceptionally  touching  in  it,  and  then  cov- 
ertly watched  the  countenance  of  the  reader  for  an  indication  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  lines  would  affect  one  who  came  upon  them  unex- 
pectedly. Macaulay,  in  the  margin  of  his  Euripides,  marked  the  passage 
as  "  the  most  beautiful  narration  that  I  remember  in  the  whole  Attic 
drama;"  and,  as  his  annotations  show,  he  liked  it  all  the  better  because 
Fox  had  liked  it  before  him. 

2  In  1800  Fox  came  up  from  St.  Anne's  Hill  at  an  important  crisis,  on 
the  understanding  that  he  would  have  to  remain  only  two  nights  in 
town.  "  When,"  said  Lord  Holland,  "  he  heard  that  the  debate  was 
postponed  in  consequence  of  Mr.  Pitt's  indisposition,  he  sat  silent  and 
overcome,  as  if  the  intelligence  of  some  great  calamity  had  reached  his 
ears.  I  saw  tears  steal  down  his  cheeks ;  so  vexed  was  he  at  being  de- 
tained from  his  garden,  his  books,  and  his  cheerful  life  in  the  country." 
"  Never  did  a  letter,"  wrote  Fox,  in  1801,  "  arrive  at  a  worse  time,  my 
dear  young  one,  than  yours  this  morning.  A  sweet  westerly  wind,  a 
beautiful  sun,  all  the  thorns  and  elms  just  budding,  and  the  nightingales 
just  beginning  to  sing;  though  the  blackbirds  and  thrushes  would  have 
been  quite  sufficient  to  have  refuted  any  arguments  in  your  letter.  Seri- 
ously speaking,  I  cannot  conceive  what  you  mean  by  everybody  agreeing 
that  something  may  be  now  done.  I  beg,  at  least,  not  to  be  included  in 
the  holders  of  that  opinion.  I  would,  nevertheless,  go  to  town  if  I  saw 
any  chance  of  my  going  being  serviceable  to  the  public,  or  (which,  in  my 
view  of  things,  is  exactly  the  same  thing)  to  the  party  which  I  love  both 
as  a  party  and  on  account  of  many  of  the  individuals  who  compose  it." 
"I  wish  I  were  member  for  Westminster,"  said  Lord  Lauderdale.    "I 


410  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

Fox,  from  twenty  to  twenty-five,  had  doubtless  not  the  air 
of  a  rigid  moralist.  The  world  could  not  believe  that  the 
king  of  the  macaronis  wore  the  most  audacious  costumes, 
and  carried  the  largest  nosegay  in  London,  for  nothing ;  and 
the  suspicions  of  the  world  were  freely  expressed  by  the  verse- 
writers  of  society. 

"  Here  Charles  his  native  eloquence  refined, 
Pleased  at  the  toilet,  in  the  senate  shined ; 
And  North  approved,  and  Amoret  looked  kind." 

But  he  was  involved  in  no  overt  scandal.  He  broke  up  no 
man's  home.  He  did  not  add  a  paragraph  to  the  chronicle 
of  sin  and  misery  in  which  companions  and  relatives  of  his 
own  conspicuously  figured.  A  Lovelace  never  would  have 
won  or  valued  the  enthusiastic  friendship  with  which  Fox 
was  honored  by  so  many  high-minded  women,  whose  loyalty 
to  his  interests  at  a  great  crisis  has  furnished  some  of  the 
most  agreeable  among  the  stock  anecdotes  of  English  history. 
The  secret  of  the  certainty  with  which  he  pleased  those  of  the 
other  sex  who  were  best  worth  pleasing  is  clearly  revealed 
in  the  letters  addressed  by  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire  to  her 
mother,  and  still  more  clearly  in  the  letters  which  Fox  ad- 
dressed to  the  duchess  herself.  His  notion  of  true  gallantry 
was  to  treat  women  as  beings  who  stood  on  the  same  intel- 
lectual table-land  as  himself;  to  give  them  the  very  best  of 
his  thought  and  his  knowledge,  as  well  as  of  his  humor  and 
his  eloquence ;  to  invite  and  weigh  their  advice  in  seasons  of 
difficulty;  and,  if  ever  they  urged  him  to  steps  which  his 
judgment  or  his  conscience  disapproved,  not  to  elude  them 
with  half-contemptuous  banter,  but  to  convince  them  by  plain- 
spoken  and  serious  remonstrance.1     The  arts  by  which  Fox 

wish  I  were  a  Scotch  peer,"  replied  Fox ;  "  for  then  I  should  be  dis- 
qualified." 

1  "My  dear  Duchess,"  Fox  wrote,  in  February,  1806,  when  the  Whig 
ministry  was  forming,  "  your  note  has  distressed  me  to  the  greatest  de- 
gree.    I  told  Lord explicitly  that  it  was  very  doubtful  whether  I 

should  have  anything  to  propose  to  him  ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  quite  impos- 
sible now,  unless  your  brother  would  give  up  Lord  Althorpe's  having  a 
place  at  one  of  the  boards.     Can  I  give  up  Jack  Townshend,  or  Courte- 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  411 

retained  the  affectionate  regard  of  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire, 
until  it  was  elevated  into  a  devotion  honorable  to  herself  and 
to  him,  belong  to  a  later  and  graver  period  of  their  lives ;  but 
allusions  to  the  qualities  which  first  recommended  him  to  her 
admiration  and  esteem  are  scattered,  only  too  sparsely,  through 
the  earlier  portion  of  her  familiar  correspondence.  "  We  re- 
turned to  Chatsworth  this  morning,"  she  wrote  on  the  four- 
teenth of  August,  1777.  "  Mr.  Fox  came  in  the  evening  from 
town — Charles  Fox  d  V ordinaire.  I  have  always  thought  that 
his  great  merit  is  his  amazing  quickness  in  seizing  any  subject. 
He  seems  to  have  the  particular  talent  of  knowing  more  about 
what  he  is  saying,  and  with  less  pains,  than  anybody  else. 
His  conversation  is  like  a  brilliant  player  at  billiards:  the 
strokes  follow  one  another,  piff !  paff !  And  what  makes  him 
more  entertaining  is  his  bein^  here  with  Mr.  Townshend  and 
the  Duke  of  Devonshire ;  for  their  being  so  much  together  in 
town  makes  them  show  off  one  another.  Their  chief  topics 
are  politics  and  Shakespeare.  As  for  the  latter,  they  all  three 
have  the  most  astonishing  memory  for  it.  I  suppose  I  shall 
be  able  in  time  to  go  through  a  play  as  they  do." 

But  Charles  Fox's  chivalry  did  not  stop  with  the  great  and 
the  fortunate. 

"Then  gently  scan  your  brother  man, 
Still  gentler  sister  woman," 

was  the  saying  of  a  poet  with  whom,  for  good  and  evil,  he 


nay,  or  Fitzpatrick,  or  Lord  Robert  for  any  of  these  young  lords  ?   Indeed, 
indeed,  my  friends  are  hard  upon  me." 

That  was  the  strain  in  which,  on  occasion,  Fox  would  write  to  the 
Duchess  of  Devonshire.  How  she  wrote  of  him  is  prettily  exemplified  in 
a  letter  of  hers  to  Lord  Hartington,  dated  the  twenty-third  of  the  previous 
month.  "  Mr.  Fox  was  with  your  father  to-day,  and  pleased  him  much 
by  his  manner  about  Pitt.  Your  father  said  it  was  impossible  not  to  feel 
shocked  at  the  death  of  a  person  of  such  importance  and  former  consid- 
eration. Mr.  Fox  agreed,  and  said  that  to  him  it  appeared  as  if  there 
was  something  missing  in  the  world.  The  more  you  know  of  Mr.  Fox's 
character,  the  more  you  will  admire  the  great  features  of  his  mind — the 
vast  comprehension  that  takes  in  any  subject,  united  to  a  candor  and 
benevolence  that  render  him  as  amiable  as  he  is  great." 


412  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

had  much  in  common ; '  and  it  was  the  precept  which,  of  all 
others,  he  honored  by  his  observance.  "  Do  you  not  hate  that 
fellow?"  he  was  once  asked,  with  reference  to  a  member  of 
Parliament  who  irritated  the  Whigs  by  the  virulence  of  his 
speaking,  and  bored  them  by  its  prolixity.  "  Ah,  well !"  re- 
plied Fox,  "  I  am  a  bad  hater."  And  though,  during  his  first 
half-dozen  sessions,  he  could  sometimes  work  himself  up  into 
the  illusion  that  he  detested  political  opponents  whom  he 
would  never  have  voluntarily  and  deliberately  injured,  his  in- 
dulgence towards  the  weaker  half  of  humanity  was  already 
without  stint  or  limit.  Whenever,  rich  or  poor,  blameless  or 
erring,  a  woman  was  in  trouble,  she  always  was  sure  of  a 
champion  in  Fox.  The  spring  sitting  of  1772  was,  as  far  as 
he  was  concerned,  one  long  effort  for  the  protection  of  the 
helpless  and  the  unhappy.  He  advocated,  without  success, 
an  alteration  of  the  laws  which  rendered  the  mother  of  an 
illegitimate  child  liable  to  a  degrading  punishment  if  she  con- 
fessed the  birth,  and  which  condemned  her  to  the  gallows  if 
she  was  shamed  or  terrified  into  concealing  it.  He  success- 
fully opposed  a  bill  framed  to  forbid  the  marriage  of  a  di- 
vorced wife  with  her  seducer — an  ordinance  which  would 
have  made  sad  havoc  with  the  prospects  of  some  of  the  most 
famous  ladies  of  the  day.  But  he  was  never  so  much  in  ear- 
nest as  when  inveighing  against  that  penal  legislation  which 
he  regarded  as  a  standing  insult  to  his  own  parents,  whose 
love-story  it  desecrated  by  linking  it  with  the  idea  of  the  con- 
stable, the  dock,  and  the  jail.  He  denounced  the  statute 
which  refused  the  benefit  of  clergy  to  any  one  who  carried 
off  a  woman  with  the  intention  of  forcing  her  into  marriage, 
on  the  ground  that  an  angry  father  or  guardian  would  not  be 
in  a  temper  to  discriminate  very  nicely  between  an  elopement 
and  an  abduction ;  while  the  wife,  as  no  longer  a  legal  wit- 
ness, might  see  her  husband  hanged  for  a  crime  against  her- 
self in  which  she  had  been  an  accomplice  before  the  act. 
And,  eager  to  show  that  he  could  legislate  with  the  wisest  as 

1  "  Burns,"  he  said,  "  was  about  as  clever  a  man  as  ever  lived.  Lord 
Sidmouth  thought  him  a  better  poet  than  Cowper.  I  cannot  say  but 
he  had  a  better  understanding." 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  413 

well  as  speak  with  the  cleverest,  he  would  not  be  satisfied  un- 
til he  had  himself  introduced  a  bill  for  the  repeal  of  that  Mar- 
riage Act  of  Lord  Hardwicke's  devising  to  which  nineteen 
years  had  not  reconciled  Henry  Fox  or  Henry  Fox's  son. 
His  handling  of  the  question  was  signalized  by  extraordinary 
dexterity,  and  quite  as  extraordinary  heedlessness  and  caprice. 
On  the  seventh  of  April,  by  an  easy  and  extemporaneous  dis- 
play of  ability,  the  circumstantial  and  well-attested  narrative 
of  which  reads  like  a  miracle,  he  steered  his  enterprise  safely 
through  its  first  perils,  under  the  fire  of  Burke's  best  oratory 
from  one  side  of  the  House  and  Lord  North's  emphatic  dis- 
approval on  the  other.  The  impetus  of  that  night's  debate 
carried  smoothly  and  silently,  into  the  last  stage  but  one,  a 
measure  upon  which  its  author  was  too  busy  with  his  amuse- 
ments to  bestow  any  further  trouble,  while  the  Treasury  man- 
agers kept  on  it  a  watchful  and  malevolent  eye.  On  the  nine- 
teenth of  May,  Fox  drove  in  from  Newmarket  just  in  time  for 
a  division  which,  by  a  majority  of  three  to  one,  extinguished 
his  hopes  when  they  seemed  to  have  reached  the  very  edge  of 
fruition ;  and  with  that  catastrophe  ended,  for  the  present  at 
least,  his  schemes  for  improving  the  relations  between  the 
sexes. 

Erratic  and  abnormal  as  was  the  public  career  of  Fox,  his 
private  life  was  just  as  little  conformed  to  ordinary  rules  and 
precedents.  No  one  thought  of  classing  him  among  the  com- 
mon rakes  and  spendthrifts  of  the  day,  and  still  less  among 
its  respectabilities.  So  exceptional  a  personage  did  he  appear 
to  his  own  contemporaries  that,  in  search  of  a  comparison  for 
him,  they  were  in  the  habit  of  going  back  to  Julius  Caesar; 
and  it  is  not  easy,  even  for  a  generation  which  thinks  less  about 
the  Romans  and  knows  more  of  the  people  who  have  come 
since  them  than  the  readers  of  the  eighteenth  centurv,  to  find 
any  parallel  for  Charles  Fox  more  recent  than  the  young  pa- 
trician who  was  worth  proscribing  at  eighteen ;  who  was  a 
renowned  orator  at  two-and-twenty ;  who  led  fashion  almost 
from  the  moment  that  he  assumed  the  toga;  and  who  owed 
more  money  than  Crassus  ever  gathered  or  Apicius  squan- 
dered. 


414  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  X. 

There  exists  at  Brooks's  Club  a  curious  memorial  of  the  so- 
ciety in  which  Fox  lived,  and  of  the  constant  and  minute  at- 
tention which  that  society  bestowed  upon  all  his  proceedings. 
As  far  back  as  the  reign  of  William  the  Third,  foreigners  had 
observed  that,  on  matters  great  and  small,  the  only  sure  test 
of  English  opinions  was  the  state  of  the  odds.  Our  ancestors 
were  men  of  their  hands — more  ready  with  sword  and  purse 
than  with  word  and  pen — who  regarded  a  duel  as  the  natural 
issue  of  a  quarrel,  and  a  bet  as  the  most  authoritative  solution 
of  an  argument.  To  drag  through  newspapers  and  law-courts 
the  lengthening  scandal  of  a  dispute  wThich  a  single  interview 
in  one  of  the  parks  would  settle  with  credit,  if  not  with  satis- 
faction, to  both  parties  was  not  more  repugnant  to  their  idea 
of  what  was  becoming  and  convenient  than  to  spend  twenty 
minutes  in  confuting  a  man  who  had  so  little  faith  in  his  own 
view  that  he  would  not  back  it  with  twenty  guineas.  But, 
by  the  time  George  the  Third  was  on  the  throne,  persons  of 
rank  and  position  were  tired  of  being  challenged  to  stake 
their  money  by  frequenters  of  public  coffee-houses  whose  ca- 
pacity to  pay  was  doubtful,  and  about  wThose  anticipations  as 
to  the  date  of  the  coming  dissolution  and  the  destination  of 
the  next  blue  ribbon  they  did  not  care  a  farthing.  The  first 
London  clubs  of  the  model  to  which  that  name  is  now  exclu- 
sively applied  were  instituted,  among  other  kindred  purposes, 
with  the  object  of  providing  the  world  of  fashion  with  a  cen- 
tral office  for  making  wagers,  and  a  registry  for  recording  them. 
And  so  it  comes  about  that  the  betting-book  at  Brooks's  has 
an  interest  of  its  own  which  resembles  nothing  in  any  library 
or  museum  in  the  country.  The  entries  in  its  pages,  most 
characteristic  of  the  time  and  the  men,  standing,  each  in  their 
proper  order,  between  the  covers  within  which  they  were 
originally  written — uniform  in  their  general  character,  but 
with  variety  of  detail  as  inexhaustible  as  the  circumstances  of 
our  national  history  and  the  changes  in  our  national  manners 
— form  a  volume  which  is  to  an  ordinary  collection  of  auto- 
graphs what  the  "  Liber  Veritatis  "  of  Claude  is  to  a  portfolio 
of  detached  sketches  by  the  great  masters.  Fifty  guineas  that 
Thurlow  gets  a  tellership  of  the  Exchequer  for  his  son  ;  fifty 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  EOX.  415 

guineas  that  Mademoiselle  Heinel  does  not  dance  at  the  opera- 
house  next  winter;  fifty  guineas  that  two  thousand  people 
were  at  the  Pantheon  last  evening ;  fifty  guineas  that  Lord 
Ilchester  gives  his  first  vote  in  opposition,  and  hits  eight  out 
of  his  first  ten  pheasants ;  three  hundred  to  fifty  from  a  no- 
bleman who  appreciated  the  privileges  of  a  bachelor  that  the 
Duke  of  Devonshire,  Lord  Cholmondeley,  and  two  given  com- 
moners are  married  before  him  ;  five  guineas  down,  to  receive 
a  hundred  if  the  Duke  of  Queensberry  dies  before  half  an 
hour  after  five  in  the  afternoon  of  the  twenty-seventh  of  June, 
1773 ;  a  hundred  guineas  on  the  Duke  of  Queen  sherry's  life 
against  Lord  Palmerston's ;  a  hundred  guineas  that  Lord 
Derby  does  not  see  the  next  general  election ;  and  a  hundred 
guineas,  between  two  unusually  discreet  members  of  the  club, 
that  some  one  in  their  eye  does  not  live  ten  years  from  the 
present  date.1  The  betting  was  hottest  in  war  time,  and  dur- 
ing the  period  while  a  notorious  criminal  remained  untried  or 
unhanged ;  for  the  disciples  of  George  Selwyn  were  never  tired 
of  calculating  the  chances  of  people  dying  elsewhere  than  in 
their  beds.  The  old  yellow  leaves  are  scored  thick  with  bets 
that  one  of  the  Perreaus  would  be  hanged ;  that  neither  of 
them  would  be  hanged,  and  that  Mrs.  Eudd  would  be  admitted 
to  bail ;  that  Dr.  Dodd  would  be  executed  within  two  months  ; 
that  he  would  anticipate  the  gallows  by  suicide ;  and  that  if 
he  killed  himself,  it  would  be  by  pistol,  and  not  by  poison. 
Fitzpatrick,  flying  at  higher  game,  laid  five  hundred  guineas 
to  ten  that  none  of  the  cabinet  were  beheaded  by  that  day 
three  years  ;  and  another  gentleman,  who  believed  the  melan- 
choly contingency  to  be  not  only  possible,  but  probable,  was 
free-spoken  enough  to  name  his  minister.  Still  bolder  spirits 
did  not  shrink  from  placing  their  money  upon  prophecies 
which  the  delicacy  of  a  later  age  has  taken  effectual  care  to 

1  There  is  nothing  in  the  book  at  Brooks's  (or,  at  any  rate,  nothing 
which  has  been  left  unblotted)  equal  to  the  wager  laid  elsewhere  by  two 
men  of  family  on  the  survivorship  of  their  respective  fathers — a  wager 
which,  as  it  happened,  fate  had  already  decided.  Before  the  news  ar- 
rived, the  heart  of  one  of  the  pair  failed  him,  and  he  had  made  over  his 
bc3t  to  Lord  March. 


41 G  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  X. 

render  illegible ;  for,  indeed,  there  was  no  event  or  experience 
in  the  whole  compass  of  human  existence  which  March  and 
his  friends  thought  it  necessary  to  exclude  from  the  field  of 
legitimate  speculation.  It  was  in  allusion  to  quite  the  most 
innocent  class  of  these  personal  and  domestic  wagers  that  Lord 
Mountford,  when  asked  whether  his  daughter  was  going  to 
present  him  with  a  grandchild,  replied,  "  Upon  my  word,  I  do 
not  know.     I  have  no  bet  upon  it." 

For  ten  years,  from  1771  onwards,  Charles  Fox  betted  fre- 
quently, largely,  and  judiciously  on  the  social  and  political  oc- 
currences of  the  time.  He  laid  two  hundred  guineas  that 
Lord  North  would  be  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  in  March, 
1773,  and  twenty  guineas  that  he  would  still  be  First  Lord  in 
March,  1776,  "  bar  death ;"  a  hundred  and  fifty  to  fifty  that 
the  Tea  Act  was  not  repealed  in  the  winter  session  of  1774; 
twenty  guineas  that  Lord  Northington,  who  took  more  kindly 
to  water  than  his  father,  did  not  swim  one  mile  the  next  time 
he  went  into  the  Thames  or  any  other  river ;  ten  guineas  down, 
to  receive  five  hundred  whenever  Turkey  in  Europe  belonged 
to  a  European  power  or  powers ;  and  a  guinea  down,  to  receive 
fifty  "  whenever  Mr.  Croft  forgets  two  by  honors  in  Mr.  Fox's 
presence."  He  was  fond  of  wagers  the  settlement  of  which 
was  dependent  upon  an  antecedent  condition.  "  Lord  Ossory 
betts  Mr.  Charles  Fox  100  guineas  to  10  that  Dr.  North  is  not 
Bishop  of  Durham  this  day  2  months,  provided  the  present 
Bishop  dies  within  that  time."  "  Mr.  E.  Foley  betts  Mr. 
Charles  Fox  50  guineas  England  is  at  war  with  France  this 
day  two  years,  supposing  Louis  the  Fifteenth  dead."  And 
Mr.  Charles  Fox  himself  bets  a  hundred  guineas  against  the 
Duke  of  Devonshire  having  the  Garter  within  seven  years, 
"the  Duke  to  live, or  no  bet."  When  the  Perreaus  were  on 
their  trial  for  forgery,  Fox  was  concerned  in  five  bets  out  of  a 
consecutive  group  of  six ;  and  it  is  pleasant  to  remark  that, 
even  in  his  hours  of  sport,  the  young  reformer  of  the  penal 
code  was  on  the  side  of  mercy.1    Many  pages  together  during 

1  "  The  town,"  said  Walpole,  with  a  hit  at  the  patronage  which  the 
Court  so  freely  bestowed  upon  Jacobite  writers,  "  is  very  busy  about  a 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES   FOX.  417 

1774  and  1775  are  half  covered  by  his  unformed  but  frank, 
resolute,  and  most  readable  handwriting ;  and  no  single  name 
appears  anything  like  so  often  as  his,  until,  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  Revolutionary  war,  under  the  excitement  of  the  downward 
and  upward  rush  of  consols,  and  of  defeats  on  land  alternating 
with  victories  at  sea,  Sheridan  brought  forth  from  its  retire- 
ment the  almost  neglected  volume,  and  turned  it  into  some- 
thing very  like  a  private  betting-book  of  his  own.1  But  the 
wagers  made  by  Fox  are  not  so  suggestive  as  the  wagers  made 
about  him.  The  club,  which  was  so  helpful  to  him  in  later 
life,  and  which  is  still  so  faithful  to  his  memory,  seems  to  have 
watched  him,  from  the  very  h'rst,  with  a  sort  of  paternal  in- 
tentness.  "  Lord  Bolingbroke  gives  a  guinea  to  Mr.  Charles 
Fox,  and  is  to  receive  a  Thousand  from  him  whenever  the 
debt  of  this  country  amounts  to  171  millions.  Mr.  Fox  is  not 
to  pay  the  1000  till  he  is  a  member  of  His  Majesty's  Cabinet." 
"  Lord  Clermont  has  given  Mr.  Crawf  urd  10  guineas  upon  con- 
dition of  receiving  £500  from  him  whenever  Mr.  Charles  Fox 
shall  be  worth  £100,000,  clear  of  debts."  Such  are  two  among 
those  allusions  to  the  opening  of  his  political  prospects  and 
the  waning  of  his  pecuniary  fortunes  which  fill  a  larger  space 
in  the  records  of  Brooks's  even  than  prognostications  about  the 
length  of  Lord  North's  first  Parliament  and  the  health  and 
life  of  a  Certain  Great  Person. 

Mr.  Crawford  must  have  spent  his  ten  guineas  with  a  safe 
conscience.  There  was  quite  as  much  likelihood  that  Great 
Britain  would  grow  solvent  under  Lord  North  and  Sandwich 
as  that  Charles  Fox  would  ever  be  worth  his  plum.     Brilliant 

history  of  two  Perreaus  and  a  Mrs.  Rudd,  who  are  likely  to  be  hanged 
for  misapplying  their  ingenuity.  They  drew  bills,  instead  of  rising  from 
the  pillory  to  pensions  by  coining  anecdotes  against  the  author  and 
friends  of  the  Revolution." 

1  In  1794  Sheridan  was  responsible  for  eight  bets  running,  on  subjects 
which  varied  in  importance  from  the  question  of  the  French  having  fail- 
ed or  succeeded  in  occupying  Amsterdam  to  the  question  of  the  short- 
est way  from  one  house  to  another  being  by  Sackville  Street  or  Bond 
Street,  Fox  entered  his  last  wager  in  1795 ;  but  for  years  previously  he 
had  almost  disused  the  practice. 

27 


418  THE  EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  X. 

at  whist,  quinze,  and  piquet,  and  almost  invariably  successful 
in  wagers  where  he  backed  his  knowledge  of  the  world  or  his 
insight  into  politics,  he  never  could  resist  the  attractions  of 
that  table  where  skill  could  not  protect  him  from  the  influ- 
ence of  his  terrible  ill-luck ;  and  he  too  often  matched  him- 
self against  antagonists  who  made  hazard  a  game  of  chance 
only  in  name.  A  half- century  afterwards,  Lord  Egremont 
told  Lord  Holland  that  mature  reflection,  aided  by  enlarged 
experience,  had  convinced  him  that  the  constant  and  im- 
moderate superiority  which  certain  players  maintained  over 
Charles  Fox  and  other  young  men  was  not  to  be  explained 
by  the  fortune  of  the  dice ;  but  if  any  one,  he  added,  had 
dared  to  hint  such  a  suspicion  at  the  time,  the  losers  them- 
selves would  have  torn  him  in  pieces.  The  highest  play  ever 
known  in  London  took  place  during  the  three  years  that  pre- 
ceded the  American  war.1  Five  thousand  pounds  were  staked 
on  one  card  at  faro,  and  seventy  thousand  pounds  changed 
hands  in  a  single  evening.  Stephen  Fox  once  sat  down  with 
thirteen  thousand  pounds,  and  rose  without  a  farthing ;  and 
his  brother  was  quoted  daily,  in  prose  and  verse,  as  the  type 

1  "The  young  men  of  quality,"  wrote  Horace  Walpole,  with  reference 
to  the  year  1772,  "  had  a  club  at  Ahnack's,  where  they  played  only  for 
rouleaux  of  fifty  pounds  each ;  and  generally  there  was  ten  thousand 
pounds  in  specie  on  the  table.  Lord  Holland  had  paid  above  twenty 
thousand  pounds  for  his  two  sons.  Nor  were  the  manners  of  the  game- 
sters, or  even  their  dresses  for  play,  undeserving  of  notice.  They  began 
by  pulling  off  their  embroidered  clothes,  and  put  on  frieze  great-coats,  or 
turned  their  coats  inside  outwards  for  luck.  They  put  on  pieces  of  leather, 
such  as  are  worn  by  footmen  when  they  clean  the  knives,  to  save  their 
laced  ruffles;  and,  to  guard  their  eyes  from  the  light,  and  to  prevent 
tumbling  their  hair,  wore  high-crowned  hats  with  broad  brims,  and 
adorned  with  flowers  and  ribbons." 

The  account  would  be  incredible  but  for  a  stage  direction  in  Foote's 
"  Nabob,"  which  was  played  in  1773 :  "  Act  the  Second.  Sir  Matthew  Mite 
in  his  gaming  dress,  a  waiter  attending."  The  waiter  was  a  servant  at 
one  of  the  clubs,  who  gave  the  Nabob  lessons  in  the  art  of  playing  with 
style  and  losing  with  grace.  "  Well,  Dick,"  said  Sir  Matthew  at  the  end 
of  the  interview, "  you  will  go  down  to  my  steward  and  teach  him  the 
best  method  of  making  a  rouleau.  And,  d'ye  hear,  let  him  give  you  one 
for  your  pains." 


1772-74.]  CHARLES   JAMES  FOX.  419 

of  the  unlucky  gamester.  Walpole,  enumerating  the  things  in 
the  world  that  were  best  worth  finding,  bracketed  together 
the  longitude,  the  philosopher's  stone,  the  certificate  of  the 
Duchess  of  Kingston's  first  marriage,  the  missing  books  of 
Livy,  "  and  all  that  Charles  Fox  had  lost."  And  from  among 
the  countless  allusions  to  the  prodigal  that  occur  in  the  satires 
of  the  day,  it  may  be  permitted  to  cull  a  few  rhymes,  the  jo- 
vial ring  of  which  makes  amends  for  their  lack  of  point  and 
elegance : 

"  At  Almack's  of  pigeons  I  am  told  there  are  flocks, 

But  it's  thought  the  completest  is  one  Mr.  Fox  ; 

If  he  touches  a  card,  if  he  rattles  the  box, 

Away  fly  the  guineas  of  this  Mr.  Fox. 

He  has  met,  I'm  afraid,  with  so  many  hard  knocks 

That  cash  is  not  plenty  with  this  Mr.  Fox. 

In  gaming,  'tis  said,  he's  the  stoutest  of  cocks — 

No  man  can  play  deeper  than  this  Mr.  Fox ; 

And  he  always  must  lose,  for  the  strongest  of  locks 

Cannot  keep  any  money  for  this  Mr.  Fox. 
•  No  doubt  such  behavior  exceedingly  shocks 

The  friends  and  acquaintance  of  this  Mr.  Fox ; 

And  they  wish  from  their  souls  they  could  put  in  the  stocks, 

And  make  an  example  of,  this  Mr.  Fox. 

He's  exceedingly  curious  in  coats  and  in  frocks ; 

So  the  tailor's  a  pigeon  to  this  Mr.  Fox. 

He  delights  much  in  hunting,  though  fat  as  an  ox. 

I  pity  the  horses  of  this  Mr.  Fox : 

They  are  probably  most  of  them  lame  in  the  hocks ; 

Such  a  heavy-made  fellow  is  this  Mr.  Fox." 

In  defiance  of  nature,  which  seemed  to  have  modelled  him 
for  any  other  class  of  pursuits,  Fox  was  an  ardent,  a  many- 
sided,  and,  in  some  departments,  a  most  accomplished  sports- 
man. If  it  was  possible  for  him  to  enjoy  himself  more  at  one 
time  than  at  another,  he  was  most  actively  alive  to  the  charms 
of  existence  when  behind  his  pointers  or  his  spaniels ;  and,  like 
all  men  of  his  temperament,  he  shot  better  after  advancing 
years  had  taken  off  the  first  edge  of  his  keenness.  But  he 
did  not  require  a  gun  to  tempt  him  abroad.  He  prided  him- 
self on  his  endurance  as  a  pedestrian,  and  on  the  steadiness  of 
pace  which  enabled  him  almost  infallibly  to  calculate  the  dis- 


420  THE   EARLY  HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  X. 

tance  that  he  traversed  by  the  time  that  he  spent  over  it.  The 
friends  of  his  later  life  could  not  please  him  better  than  by 
disputing  whether  this  or  that  village  was  nine  or  eleven  miles 
from  St.  Anne's  Hill,  in  order  to  give  him  the  opportunity  of 
solving  the  problem  by  a  walk.  When  a  lad  at  Oxford,  he 
trudged  the  fifty-six  miles  between  Hertford  College  and  Hol- 
land House  in  the  course  of  a  summers  day,  and  only  broke 
the  journey  for  a  lunch  of  bread  and  cheese  and  porter,  in 
payment  for  whicb,  observing  the  usual  proportion  between 
the  market-value  of  his  pleasures  and  the  price  that  they  cost 
him,  he  left  his  gold  watch  in  pawn  with  the  innkeeper.  Dur- 
ing a  tour  in  Kerry  he  swam  twice  round  the  Devil's  Punch- 
bowl, as  if  in  the  West  of  Ireland  he  had  not  enough  wrater 
from  overhead.1  He  was  a  cricketer ;  and  would  have  been 
famous  as  a  batsman  if  he  had  taken  the  game  as  seriously  as 
he  took  chess  and  tennis.  "  My  love  to  Carlisle,"  he  wrote  to 
Selwyn  from  King's  Gate  in  August,  1771 ;  "  and  tell  him  we 
have  a  cricket  party  here,  at  which  I  am  very  near  the  best 
player;  so  he  may  judge  of  the  rest."  In  and  out  of  his 
ground  as  freely  as  if  it  had  been  a  Lordship  of  the  Ad- 
miralty or  the  Treasury,  it  may  wTell  be  imagined  that,  in  the 
heat  of  youth,  he  was  an  unreliable  partner  at  the  wicket. 
When  past  five-and-fifty,  and  as  much  older  than  his  years 
in  body  as  he  was  younger  in  all  else,  he  never  failed  to  run 
himself  out  amidst  the  reproachful  cries  of  spectators  to  whom 
it  seemed  almost  a  miracle  that  he  could  run  at  all.  Trap-ball 
he  played  in  his  chair  to  the  very  last,  and  so  skilfully  as  to 
deprive  him  of  all  excuse  for  the  barefaced  advantages  which 
he  took  over  the  very  small  Whigs  in  wmose  company  he 
was  as  much  at  home  as  ever  he  had  been  with  their  grand- 
fathers. 

The  health  which  he  began  with  was  wonderful.  A  spoonful 
of  rhubarb,  he  cheerfully  boasted,  cured  all  the  ills  to  which  his 
flesh  was  heir;  although  the  maladies  which  his  careless  but 
laborious  mode  of  life  too  early  brought  upon  him  ere  long 

1  When  he  next  met  Herbert  of  Muckross  in  London,  "  Pray  tell  me," 
he  said,  "  is  that  shower  at  Killarney  over  yet !" 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES   FOX.  421 

required  sterner  remedies.  He  would  gladly  have  been  thin- 
ner. But  he  was  too  much  of  a  man  to  be  ashamed  of  a  mis- 
fortune which  he  did  his  utmost  to  correct;1  for, in  whatever 
pastime  he  was  engaged,  he  always  contrived  to  get  out  of  it 
the  greatest  practicable  amount  of  bodily  exercise.  "  When 
his  horse  ran,"  we  are  told,  "  he  was  all  eagerness  and  anxiety. 
He  placed  himself  where  the  animal  was  to  make  a  push,  or 
where  the  race  was  to  be  most  strongly  contested.  From  this 
spot  he  eyed  the  horses  advancing  with  the  most  immovable 
look ;  he  breathed  quicker  as  they  accelerated  their  pace ;  and, 
when  they  came  opposite  to  him,  he  rode  in  with  them  at  full 
speed,  whipping,  spurring,  and  blowing  as  if  he  would  have 
infused  his  whole  soul  into  his  favorite  racer.  But  when  the 
race  was  over,  whether  he  won  or  lost  seemed  to  be  a  matter  of 
perfect  indifference  to  him,  and  he  immediately  directed  his 
conversation  to  the  next  race,  whether  he  had  a  horse  to  run 
or  not."  There  is  a  passage  in  the  Chatsworth  correspondence 
which,  while  it  apparently  alludes  to  the  almost  inconceivable 
circumstance  of  Fox  having  been  in  the  habit  of  riding  his  own 
matches,  more  probably  refers  to  his  vicarious  exertions  near 
the  winning-post.  "Mr.  Fox  returned  this  morning.  He  trav- 
elled all  night,  and  yet  won  one  or  two  races,  which,  consider- 
ing his  not  having  been  abed,  and  his  size,  is  doing  a  great 
deal."  In  1772  lie  netted  sixteen  thousand  pounds  by  laying 
against  the  favorite,  who  was  beaten  by  half  a  neck ;  but,  as 
the  owner  of  a  stable,  he  did  not  escape  the  fate  which  has  so 
often  befallen  more  cautious  and  less  busy  men.  His  own  ex- 
planation of  his  frequent  defeats  was  that  his  horses  were  as 
good  as  those  of  his  neighbors,  but  that  they  never  would  gal- 

1  Lord  Holland's  eldest  son  was  fatter  than  his  brother,  and  minded  it 
even  less.  When  a  bill  to  abolish  the  observance  of  the  thirtieth  of  Jan- 
nary  was  introduced  into  the  Commons,  Stephen  Fox  raised  a  laugh  by- 
urging  that  it  was  very  hard  to  impose  abstinence  upon  the  world  in 
general,  when  the  descendants  of  the  martyred  monarch,  to  look  at  them, 
so  evidently  never  fasted.  At  a  fancy  ball  in  the  Pantheon  he  was  fol- 
lowed about  by  a  Smithfield  butcher,  feeling  him  in  the  ribs,  and  guess- 
ing at  his  weight  in  stones,  until  two  very  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 
claimed  him  as  their  Falstaif,  and  fastened  themselves  upon  him  for  the 
rest  of  the  evening. 


422  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

lop  fast  enough  to  tire  themselves.  Of  these  prudent  animals 
he  had  at  one  time  thirty  in  training ;  and  how  fairly  he  ran 
them,  and  how  much  he  lost  by  them  from  first  to  last,  may 
be  conjectured  from  what  is  known  about  his  racing  partner, 
Lord  Foley — who,  when  he  gave  up  the  turf,  left  behind  him 
a  reputation  for  hpnor  and  good-fellowship  which  is  still  a  tra- 
dition of  the  Jockey  Club,  and  a  fortune  which  had  once  in- 
cluded above  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  ready  money. 

The  world,  never  tired  of  gossiping  about  the  young  man's 
extravagance,  was  not  in  the  dark  as  to  the  source  which  fed 
it.  "Ask  Foley,"  said  Lord  Lyttelton,  "ask  Charles  Fox  what 
they  think  of  modern  infidelity ;  and  they  will  tell  you  that 
the  Jews  themselves,  that  unbelieving  race,  have  deserted  the 
standard  of  scepticism,  and,  having  borne  the  stigma  of  spirit- 
ual unbelief  for  upwards  of  sixteen  hundred  years,  are  at  this 
moment  groaning  beneath  the  effects  of  temporal  credulity." 
And,  indeed,  to  an  heir-apparent  who  had  experienced  the  dif- 
ficulties of  borrowing  on  the  reversion  of  a  peerage,  the  all  but 
unlimited  credit  which  Lord  Holland's  younger  son  was  un- 
fortunate enough  to  obtain  must  have  appeared  nothing  less 
than  a  prodigy.  The  poets  of  society  attributed  his  success  with 
the  money-lenders  to  those  powers  of  oratorical  seduction  which 
had  so  often  beguiled  the  House  of  Commons  into  a  scrape ; 
and  the  golden  youth  of  the  day  spoke  with  envy  of  one  who 
had  at  his  command 

"  Soft  words  to  mollify  the  miser's  breast, 
And  lull  relenting  Usury  to  rest ; 
Bright  beams  of  wit  to  still  the  raging  Jew, 
Teach  him  to  dun  no  more  and  lend  anew." 

But  it  was  not  the  charm  of  eloquence  that  drew  together 
the  crowd  of  bill-discounters  who  kicked  their  heels  till  three 
in  the  afternoon  in  the  waiting-room  which  Charles  Fox  was 
accustomed  to  call  his  Jerusalem  Chamber.  It  was  the  knowl- 
edge that  only  one  very  bad  life  stood  between  their  client, 
whose  own  vitality  was  so  unquestionable,  and  an  estate  which 
Was  still  among  the  richest  in  the  kingdom.  But  even  those 
capitalists  of  St.  Mary  Axe  who  counted  the  years  during 
which  Lord  Holland  had  manipulated  the  Exchequer  balances, 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  423 

and  who  had  watched  Stephen  Fox  as  he  panted  up  the  steps 
by  which  the  pavement  of  St.  James's  Street  ascended  from 
Pall  Mall  to  Piccadilly,  would  at  length  have  shaken  their 
heads  over  the  young  man's  reiterated  demands  for  cash,  un- 
less he  had  brought  with  him  other  guarantees  than  his  ex- 
pectations. "  The  macaronis,"  wrote  Walpole,  in  July,  1773, 
"  are  their  ne  plus  ultra.  Charles  Fox  is  already  so  like  Julius 
Caesar  that  he  owes  a  hundred  thousand  pounds.  Lord  Car- 
lisle pays  fifteen  hundred  and  Mr.  Crewe  twelve  hundred  a 
year  for  him ;"  and  Walpole  underrated  the  sacrifices  that 
Charles  Fox's  friends  had  made  to  an  attachment  which  no 
misconduct  on  his  part  could  sever,  or  even  strain. 

"  A  love  from  me  to  thee 
Is  firm,  whate'er  thou  dost," 

was  the  text  for  every  letter  that  Lord  Carlisle  wrote  to  or 
about  Fox  from  the  country-seat  which  the  good-natured 
young  peer  could  not  afford  to  leave,  on  account  of  the  pecun- 
iary distress  in  which  the  improvidence  of  his  comrade  had 
involved  him.  Each  fresh  instance  of  prodigality. that  was 
reported  to  him  from  London  or  Newmarket  affected  that 
generous  heart  with  anxiety  for  the  character,  the  health,  and 
the  happiness  of  his  friend  before  he  found  time  to  compute 
and  lament  its  calamitous  influence  upon  his  own  fortunes. 

"  It  gives  me  great  pain,"  he  wrote  to  Selwyn, "  to  hear  that 
Charles  Fox  begins  to  be  unreasonably  impatient  at  losing.  I 
fear  it  is  the  prologue  to  much  f retfulness  of  temper ;  for  dis- 
appointment in  raising  money,  and  serious  reflections  upon  his 
situation,  will  occasion  him  many  disagreeable  moments.  They 
will  be  the  more  painful  when  he  reflects  that  he  is  not  fol- 
lowing the  natural  bent  of  his  genius  ;  for  that  would  lead  him 
to  serious  inquiry  and  laudable  pursuits.  I  believe  there  never 
was  a  person  yet  created  who  had  the  faculty  of  reasoning  like 
him.  His  judgments  are  never  wrong ;  his  decision  is  formed 
quicker  than  any  man's  I  ever  conversed  with  ;  and  he  never 
seems  to  mistake  but  in  his  own  affairs.  When  he  tells  you 
that  he  will  not  talk  to  you  upon  his  circumstances,  he  is  cer- 
tainly right ;  for,  if  your  head  is  not  so  much  heated  with 


421  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

chimerical  schemes  as  his  own,  or  if  you  are  not  prepared  to 
hear  of  enchantment  and  miracles,  you  will  never  enter  into 
his  manner  of  reasoning,  or  derive  any  comfort  from  those  re- 
sources which  he  brings  into  his  picture.  Adieu,  my  dear 
George  !  I  have  written  a  very  dull  letter.  I  sometimes  am  de- 
termined never  to  think  about  Charles's  affairs,  or  his  conduct 
about  them ;  for  they  are  like  religion — the  more  one  thinks, 
the  *more  one  is  puzzled."  "  I  hear,"  he  says,  later  on,  "  Charles 
cannot  go  to  perform  his  part  at  the  Winterslow  play  on  ac- 
count of  his  eyes.  I  am  afraid  his  eyes  are  otherwise  em- 
ployed. When  you  see  him,  pray  press  him  to  write  to  Lord 
Stavordale.  If  you  are  serious  with  him,  he  must  sacrifice  two 
minutes  and  a  half  to  writing,  folding  up,  and  sealing.  The 
more  I  live,  the  more  I  think  I  shall  alter  my  way  of  life  very 
essentially  for  the  future.  I  feel  more  ambitious  here  than  at 
Al mack's,  among  a  set  of  people  who  seem  to  have  none,  ex- 
cept Charles,  and  he  seems  to  have  as  much  in  ruining  himself 
as  in  any  other  pursuit."  "  Indeed,"  he  urges  on  a  third  oc- 
casion, "  Charles  must  take  care  of  himself.  He  has  very  bad 
humors  which  require  great  attention,  or  they  will  make  his 
life  miserable.  As  he  is  so  careful  in  every  other  part  of  his 
conduct,  he  will  not  be  consistent  with  himself  to  neglect  his 
health.  If  there  should  be  any  change  for  the  better  in  his 
circumstances,  Hare  will  not  lose  that  opportunity  of  speaking 
seriously  to  him  about  that  business.  But  what  he  says  is 
true.  It  would  be  useless  to  torment  him  about  it  when  he 
has  not  a  guinea  :  so  there  it  ends  for  the  present." 

This  letter  was  written  in  the  early  spring  of  1773 ;  and, 
before  the  year  had  run  out,  the  crash  came.  The  signal  for 
it  was  the  birth  of  the  boy  whom  Charles  Fox  loved  with 
more  than  a  father's  love ;  the  false  rumor  of  whose  death 
was  the  most  poignant  sorrow  that  he  ever  knewT ;  and  who, 
in  the  absence  of  children  of  his  own,  repaid  him  in  full 
measure  that  attention  and  affection  in  which  his  parents 
had  never  found  him  wanting.  The  first  service  which  the 
future  Lord  Holland  rendered  to  his  uncle  was  that  of  check- 
ing him  in  his  career  of  senseless  profusion.  Gibbon  has  re- 
corded the  comment  with  which  the  young  minister  received 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  425 

the  interesting  tidings.  "  My  brother  Ste's  son,"  said  Charles, 
"  is  a  second  Messiah,  born  for  the  destruction  of  the  Jews ;" 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  happy  event  proved  to  be  the 
making  of  his  professional  and  the  salvation  of  his  private 
creditors.  The  flood  of  unpaid  accounts  and  renewed  accept- 
ances which  at  once  poured  in  from  every  quarter  enlightened 
Lord  Holland  on  the  desperate  position  into  which  Charles 
had  floundered.  Lord  Carlisle,  most  reluctantly  obeying  his 
bounden  duty  as  a  husband  and  father,  laid  his  claim  before 
the  parents  of  his  friend  in  a  letter  which,  if  nothing  else  re- 
mained from  his  pen,  would  of  itself  stamp  him  as  everything 
that  a  true  nobleman  should  be.  Lord  Holland  confronted 
the  portentous  situation  like  the  man  of  honor  and  courage 
which,  with  all  his  faults,  he  was.  High  or  low,  exacting  or 
considerate,  grasping  Jew  or  good  Samaritan,  no  one  was  a 
penny  the  worse  for  having  helped  and  trusted  his  favorite 
boy.  Much  was  paid  on  the  spot ;  much  was  extinguished  by 
annuities  which  gradually  fell  in  ;  and  by  the  time  that  all 
wras  clear  the  Fox  property  was  less  by  a  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  pounds  as  the  consequence  of  three  years  of  childish 
giddiness  and  misbehavior.  Charles  was  ready  enough  to  do 
anything  that  his  father  would  sanction  towards  alleviating  the 
burden  which  he  had  imposed  upon  the  family.  There  are 
symptoms  in  the  book  at  Brooks's  that  he  wTas  not  unaffected 
by  a  touch  of  the  only  generous  envy — that  sense  of  self-abase- 
ment with  which  a  man  who  lives  upon  others  regards  those 
among  his  contemporaries  who  owe  everything  to  their  own 
exertions.  "  Lord  Northington  betts  Mr.  Charles  Fox  20  guin- 
eas that  he  (Mr.  Fox)  is  not  called  to  the  barr  before  this  time 
four  years."  "  Mr.  Burgoyne  betts  Mr.  Charles  Fox  50  guin- 
eas that  four  members  of  the  club  are  married  or  dead  before 
Charles  Fox  is  called  to  the  bar."  But,  while  he  himself  had 
got  as  far  as  laying  money  that  he  would  turn  his  extraordi- 
nary gifts  to  some  remunerative  purpose,  the  public,  and  per- 
haps his  friends,  had  other  and  easier  schemes  for  his  mainte- 
nance. It  was  said  that  he  was  to  marry  one  of  the  greatest 
heiresses  in  the  country,  on  the  condition  that  he  should  never 
lose  more  than  a  hundred  pounds  in  one  bet  or  at  one  sitting. 


426  THE  EAELY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

Lord  Holland  was  asked  whether  the  report  was  true.  "I 
earnestly  hope  so,"  he  replied ;  "  for  then  he  will  be  obliged 
to  go  to  bed  on  at  least  one  night  in  his  life."  But  even  if 
there  had  been  anything  in  it,  the  match  never  came  off;  and 
Fox  was  exposed,  fleeced  and  unmated,  to  the  compassion  of 
the  world — "  the  world  "  (said  Horace  Walpole),  "  which  talks 
of  Wilkes  at  the  top  of  the  wheel,  and  of  Charles  Fox  at  the 
bottom.     All  between  is  a  blank." 

Fox  was  unfortunate  in  having  Walpole  for  the  chronicler 
of  his  follies,  but  not  of  his  achievements.  The  great  memoir- 
writer  was  daily  hearing  some  fresh  story  of  the  doings  at  Al- 
mack's — which  he  had  full  leisure  to  transcribe  and  little  dis- 
inclination to  over-color — while  he  had  no  opportunity  of  see- 
ing the  younger  man  on  his  best,  or  at  any  rate  his  strongest, 
side;  for  just  as  Fox  entered  Parliament,  Horace  Walpole 
left  it.  He  had  always  hated  electioneering.  To  dine  with 
two  hundred  burgesses  amidst  bumpers,  songs,  and  tobacco ; 
to  lead  off  at  the  town  ball ;  "  to  hear  misses  play  on  the  harp- 
sichord, and  to  see  an  alderman's  copies  of  Rubens  and  Carlo 
Maratti,"  were  tortures  to  which  nothing  would  have  induced 
him  to  submit,  except  a  feeling  of  gratitude  towards  the  con- 
stituency which  had  stood  bravely  and  faithfully  by  Sir  Robert 
in  the  darkest  hour  of  his  checkered  life.1  But  five-and- twenty 
years  of  late  nights  and  bad  air  and  dull  speeches  at  length 
cured  Horace  Walpole  of  all  desire  to  remain  in  a  place  the 
method  of  entering  which  was  so  shocking  to  his  tastes  and 
deranging  to  his  habits ;  and  at  the  dissolution  of  1768  he 
did  not  again  court  the  suffrages  of  his  electors.  "  The  com- 
fort I  feel,"  he  wrote  from  Arlington  Street, "  in  sitting  peace- 
ably here,  instead  of  being  at  Lynn  in  the  high  fever  of  a  con- 
tested election,  which  at  best  would  end  in  my  being  carried 

1  "My  ancient  aunt,"  he  wrote,  in  1761,  "came  over  to  Lynn  to  see  me. 
The  first  thing  she  said  to  me,  although  we  have  not  met  these  sixteen 
years,  was, '  Child,  you  have  done  a  thing  to-day  that  your  father  never 
did  in  all  his  life.  You  sat  as  they  carried  you.  He  always  stood  the 
whole  time.'  '  Madam,'  said  I, '  when  I  am  placed  in  a  chair,  I  conclude 
I  am  to  sit  in  it.  Besides,  as  I  cannot  imitate  my  father  in  great  things, 
I  am  not  ambitious  of  mimicking  him  in  little  ones.'" 


1772-74.]  CHARLES'  JAMES  FOX.  127 

about  that  large  town  like  a  pope  at  a  bonfire,  is  very  great. 
I  do  not  think,  when  that  function  is  over,  that  I  shall  repent 
my  resolution.  Could  I  hear  oratory  beyond  my  Lord  Chat- 
ham's? Will  there  ever  be  parts  equal  to  Charles  Towns- 
hend's?  Will  George  Grenville  cease  to  be  the  most  tiresome 
of  beings  V}  Nor  was  the  sober  exultation  with  which  he  threw 
off  his  political  fetters  damped  by  a  longer  experience  of  free- 
dom. "  Ambition,"  he  told  Sir  Horace  Mann  in  1771,  "  should 
be  a  passion  of  youth ;  not,  as  it  generally  is,  of  the  end  of 
life.  What  joy  can  it  be  to  govern  the  grandchildren  of  our 
contemporaries?  It  is  but  being  a  more  magnificent  kind  of 
schoolmaster.  I  wras  told  that  I  should  regret  quitting  my 
seat  in  Parliament;  but  I  knew  myself  better  than  those 
prophets  did.  Four  years  are  past,  and  I  have  done  nothing 
but  applaud  my  resolution."  He  lived  in  the  great  world, 
but  outside  the  busy  world,  contented,  tranquil,  and  occupied ; 
concerning  himself  with  the  conflict  of  parties  as  little  as  the 
country  gentleman  who  was  out  with  his  hounds  between  the 
armies  on  the  morning  of  Edgehill ;  matching  china ;  storing 
anecdotes ;  keeping  the  anniversary  of  the  day  on  which  he 
found  Count  Grammont's  miniature;  and  holding  up  Straw- 
berry Hill  and  its  owner  as  the  model  and  example  for  the 
possessors  of  lordlier  palaces  and  more  turbulent  ambitions. 
"  Oh  !  if  my  Lord  Temple  knew  what  pleasures  he  could  cre- 
ate for  himself  at  Stowe,  he  would  not  harass  a  shattered  car- 
cass, and  sigh  to  be  insolent  at  St.  James's.  For  my  part,  I 
say  with  the  Bastard  in  "  King  John  " — though  with  a  little 
more  reverence,  and  only  as  touching  his  ambition — 

1  Oh,  old  Sir  Robert,  father,  on  my  knee 
I  give  Heaven  thanks  I  was  not  like  to  thee.'  " 

Walpole.like  a  wise  man,  did  not  mistake  where  his  happi- 
ness lay.  He  never  wished  himself  back  in  the  lobbies,  and 
still  less  on  the  benches  of  St.  Stephen's ;  but  what  he  gained 
by  his  retirement  from  politics  was  as  nothing  to  the  loss 
which  that  step  inflicted  upon  the  readers  of  our  day  and  the 
orators  of  his.  It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  Fox  and  Burke 
would  have  profited  more  in  fame,  or  we  in  pleasure,  if  the 


428  THE  EAKLY   HISTOltY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

artist — who  at  four-and-twenty  sketched  for  us  with  such 
vividness  and  fidelity  every  changing  phase  of  the  Titanic 
party  conflict  which  raged  for  months  before  and  after  the 
Christmas  of  1741 — had  left  us  a  picture  of  the  debates  on 
the  Middlesex  election  and  the  prosecution  of  the  printers, 
painted  in  the  full  maturity  of  his  rare  and  remarkable  pow- 
ers. Once,  and  once  only,  on  the  seventh  of  April,  1772,  did 
Walpole  show  himself  again  in  his  ancient  haunts.  "  Though 
I  had  never,"  he  wrote,  "  been  in  the  House  of  Commons  since 
I  had  quitted  Parliament,  the  fame  of  Charles  Fox  raised  my 
curiosity,  and  I  went  this  day  to  hear  him.  He  made  his 
motion  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  to  correct  the  old  Marriage 
Bill ;  and  he  introduced  it  with  ease,  grace,  and  clearness,  and 
without  the  prepared  and  elegant  formality  of  a  young  speak- 
er. He  did  not  shine  particularly ;  but  his  sense  and  facility 
showed  that  he  could  shine.  Lord  North,  who  had  declared 
that  he  would  not  oppose  the  introduction  of  a  new  bill,  now 
unhandsomely  opposed  it  to  please  the  Yorkes  and  the  Peers, 
and  spoke  well.  Burke  made  a  fine  and  long  oration  against 
the  motion.  He  spoke  with  a  choice  and  variety  of  language, 
a  profusion  of  metaphors,  and  yet  with  a  correctness  in  his 
diction  that  were  surprising.  His  fault  was  copiousness  above 
measure,  and  he  dealt  abundantly  too  much  in  establishing 
general  positions.  Charles  Fox,  who  had  been  running  about 
the  House  talking  to  different  persons,  and  scarce  listening  to 
Burke,  rose  with  amazing  spirit  and  memory  ;  answered  both 
Lord  North  and  Burke ;  ridiculed  the  arguments  of  the  for- 
mer, and  confuted  those  of  the  latter,  with  a  shrewdness  that 
as  much  exceeded  that  of  his  father,  in  embracing  all  the  ar- 
guments of  his  antagonists,  as  he  did  in  his  manner  and  deliv- 
ery. Lord  Holland  was  always  confused  before  he  could  clear 
up  the  point ;  fluttered  and  hesitated ;  wanted  diction ;  and 
labored  only  one  forcible  conclusion.  Charles  Fox  had  great 
facility.  His  words  flowed  rapidly;  but  he  had  nothing  of 
Burke's  variety  of  language  or  correctness,  nor  his  method. 
Yet  his  arguments  were  far  more  shrewd.  Burke  was  inde- 
fatigable, learned,  and  versed  in  every  branch  of  eloquence. 
Fox  was  dissipated,  dissolute,  idle  beyond  measure.     He  was 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  429 

that  very  morning  returned  from  Newmarket,  where  he  had 
lost  some  thousand  pounds  the  preceding  day.  He  had  stop- 
ped at  Hockerel,  where  he  found  company ;  had  sat  up  drink- 
ing all  night;  and  had  not  been  in  bed  when  he  came  to  move 
his  bill,  which  he  had  not  even  drawn  up.  This  was  genius 
— was  almost  inspiration.  The  House  dividing,  Lord  North 
was  beaten  by  sixty-two  to  sixty-one — a  disgraceful  event  for 
a  prime-minister." 

The  result  must  have  satisfied  Fox,  who  held  the  only  true 
crown  of  rhetoric  to  be  a  good  division.  He  was  no  holiday 
declaimer.  His  eloquence,  like  that  of  Sir  Eobert  Walpole, 
"  was  for  use,  and  not  for  show."  There  probably  never  was 
such  a  famous  and  attractive  orator  who  gave  so  much  care 
to  the  substance  of  his  discourse,  and  so  little  to  the  trappings. 
His  speaking,  like  that  of  all  men  who  can  speak  to  any  pur- 
pose, was  the  full  and  exact  expression  of  his  true  self.  "  I 
do  not  believe  it,  sir,"  said  Johnson  to  a  critic  who  opined  that 
Burke  was  of  the  school  of  Cicero.  "  Burke  has  great  knowl- 
edge, great  fluency  of  words,  and  great  promptness  of  ideas, 
so  as  to  speak  with  great  illustration  on  any  subject  that  comes 
before  him.  He  does  not  speak  like  Cicero  or  like  Demos- 
thenes. He  speaks  as  well  as  lie  can."  And  in  like  manner 
Fox  charmed  and  moved  and  persuaded  because  his  oratory 
was  the  faithful  reflection  of  his  ardent  and  sagacious  nature. 
"  Mr.  Pitt,"  Porson  used  to  say,  "  conceives  his  sentences  be- 
fore he  utters  them.  Mr.  Fox  throws  himself  into  the  middle 
of  his,  and  leaves  it  to  God  Almighty  to  get  him  out  again." 
"  Pitt,"  said  Fox,  "  is  never  at  a  loss  for  the  word,  and  I  am 
never  at  a  loss  for  a  word,"  and  (he  might  have  added)  for 
an  idea.  Circling  round  and  about  the  point,  but  never  leav- 
ing it ;  composing  at  the  moment,  and  for  the  moment,  and, 
as  he  laughingly  confessed,  forgetting  every  line  of  every 
speech  which  he  had  ever  uttered ;  bringing  out  a  thought  or 
a  circumstance  the  very  instant  that  it  occurred  to  him  with 
the  certainty  that,  in  the  impetuous  rush  of  his  declamation, 
he  never  would  recover  it  again  if  he  once  allowed  it  to  fall 
for  half  a  minute  into  the  rear — he  almost  seemed  as  if,  in 
the  words  of  Sterne,  he  was  catching  the  ideas  which  Heaven 


430  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

intended  for  another  man.  He  repeated  himself  freely,  fre- 
quently, and  emphatically  ;  obeying,  as  he  declared,  his  theory 
of  the  art,  but  more  probably  acting  on  the  instinct  of  the 
orator,  who  will  never  leave  his  hearers  alone  until  he  has 
talked  them  over.  And  how  willingly  those  hearers,  at  every 
period  of  his  life,  submitted  themselves  to  the  process  of  hav- 
ing the  hard  facts  and  clinching  arguments  in  which  he  dealt 
dinned  and  pounded  into  their  ears  is  evident  from  allusions 
which  lie  thick  in  every  corner  of  the  literature  of  his  epoch. 
At  one-and-twenty  he  had  already  been  dubbed  "  the  flower 
of  oratory  "  by  a  poet  far  too  thick-witted  to  do  anything  but 
reproduce  the  accepted  judgment  of  the  world ;  and  in  1780 
an  acute  and  impartial  observer  bore  Witness  how  little  he 
had  wearied  Parliament  by  ten  years  of  perpetual  speaking. 
A  Prussian  clergyman  who  had  the  courage  to  walk  on  foot 
through  a  country  the  inhabitants  of  which  in  those  days 
treated  nobody  so  badly  as  a  foreigner,  except  a  pedestrian, 
came  in  the  course  of  his  arduous  journey  to  London,  and 
went  forthwith  to  see  Fox  in  the  House  of  Commons.  "  It 
is  impossible  for  me,"  he  writes,  "  to  describe  with  what  fire 
and  persuasion  he  spoke,  and  how  the  Speaker  in  the  chair 
incessantly  nodded  approbation  from  beneath  his  solemn  wig, 
and  innumerable  voices  incessantly  called  out  'Hear  him! 
hear  him V  And  when  there  was  the  least  si^n  that  he  in- 
tended  to  leave  off  speaking,  they  no  less  vociferously  ex- 
claimed, *  Go  on  V  and  he  continued  to  speak  in  this  manner 
for  nearly  two  hours." 

So  it  was  at  the  outset,  and  so  it  continued  to  the  end. 
But,  although  his  brother-senators  heard  him  more  and  more 
willingly  as  years  went  on,  Fox  never  turned  so  many  votes 
as  during  his  first  half-dozen  sessions,  when  party  limits  were 
still  undefined,  and  party  obligations  far  less  strict  than  they 
afterwards  became.  "It  is  very  well  worth  while,"  said 
Burke,  in  1776,  "  for  a  man  to  take  pains  to  speak  well  in 
Parliament.  The  House  of  Commons  is  a  mixed  body.  It  is 
by  no  means  pure;  but  neither  is  it  wholly  corrupt,  though 
there  is  a  large  proportion  of  corruption  in  it.  There  are  many 
members  who  generally  go  with  the  minister,  but  who  will 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  431 

not  go  all  lengths.  There  are  many  honest  well-meaning  coun- 
try gentlemen  who  are  in  Parliament  only  to  keep  up  the  con- 
sequence of  their  families,  and  upon  most  of  these  a  good 
speech  will  have  influence." '  Such  people  were  open  to  con- 
viction, but  they  preferred  to  be  convinced  by  one  of  their 
own  order.  How  closely  allied  was  the  feeling  in  Parliament 
to  the  tone  of  society,  every  list  of  the  House,  and,  still  more, 
every  list  of  the  Whig  minority,  shows.  Lascelleses  and 
Townshends  and  Darners  and  Keppels  and  Cavendishes 
come  almost  as  thick  as  Camj^bells  and  Macphersons  on  the 
old  regimental  rolls  of  the  East  India  Company.  Lord  Hard- 
wicke  had  four  of  his  sons  in  the  Commons  together.  Lord 
Hertford  was  a  disappointed  man  because  he  could  only  seat 
live  of  his.  But  while  ready  to  welcome  any  number  of  a  fam- 
ily which  they  recognized,  the  well-born  politicians  of  1770 
knew  the  secret  of  making  public  life  uncomfortable  to  the 
vulgar  herd;  and  their  less  fastidious  descendants  must  ac- 
knowledge with  awe  that  they  drew  the  line  of  demarcation 
very  high.  A  report  that  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  was  to  stand 
for  Plympton  excited  the  mirthful  resentment  of  fashionable 
London  to  a  height  which  encouraged  Selwyn  to  punish  the 
offender  with  the  most  obvious  of  all  his  jokes.2  And  when 
Selwyn  himself  was  threatened  by  an  influential  timber-mer- 
chant with  an  opposition  in  his  own  borough,  the  indignation 
and  contempt  of  St.  James's  Street  passed  the  very  utmost 
bounds  of  decency.  "My  dear  George,"  wrote  Gilly  Will- 
iams, "I  am  heartily  sorry  that  this  damned  carpenter  has 
made  matters  so  serious  with  you."  "  What  can  a  man  mean," 
asked  Lord  Carlisle,  "  who  has  not  an  idea  separated  from  the 
foot-square  of  a  Norway  deal  plank,  by  desiring  to  be  in  Par- 

1  Bishop  Watson  has  preserved  the  analysis  of  a  division  on  a  question 
where  the  views  of  the  court  were  on  one  side  and  the  interests  of  the  na- 
tion on  the  other.  The  Cornish  boroughs  furnished  twenty-seven  members 
to  the  majority  which  voted  with  the  ministers ;  the  Cinque  Ports,  thir- 
teen ;  and  all  the  counties  of  England  and  Wales  together,  only  twelve. 

8  "  He  is  not  to  be  laughed  at,"  said  Selwyn.  "  He  may  very  well  suc- 
ceed in  being  elected ;  for  Sir  Joshua  is  the  ablest  man  I  know  on  a  can- 
vass." 


432  THE   EARLY   HISTORY   OF  [Chap.  X. 

liament  ?  Perhaps  if  you  could  have  got  anybody  to  ask  his 
reasons  for  such  an  unnatural  attempt,  the  fact  of  his  being 
unable  to  answer  what  he  had  never  thought  about  would 
have  made  him  desist.  But  these  beasts  are  monstrously  ob- 
stinate, and  about  as  well-bred  as  the  great  dogs  they  keep  in 
their  yards.  I  hope  to  hear  soon  that  you  have  chained  this 
animal  and  prevented  him  from  doing  you  much  harm." 

Gibbon  (who,  as  a  needy  squire  seeking  to  mend  his  fortune 
by  politics,  was  at  once  admitted  within  the  pale)  found  the 
Commons  "a  very  agreeable  coffee-house,"  with  this  advan- 
tage over  the  Lords,  that  its  frequenters  could  go  there  in  un- 
dress. Rigby,  indeed,  always  appeared  on  the  Treasury  bencli 
in  a  court  suit  of  purple  cloth,  "  with  his  sword  thrust  through 
the  pocket;"  but  the  great  body  of  the  members  pursued  their 
business  with  that  disregard  of  ceremony  which,  as  compared 
to  people  of  his  class  in  other  countries,  has  long  been  a  dis- 
tinguishing mark  of  the  English  gentleman.  "  They  come  into 
the  House,"  wrote  the  German  pastor  who  has  been  quoted 
above,  "  in  their  great-coats,  and  with  boots  and  spurs.  It  is 
not  at  all  uncommon  to  see  a  member  lying  stretched  out  on 
one  of  the  benches  while  others  are  speaking.  Some  crack 
nuts  ;  others  eat  oranges,  or  whatever  else  is  in  season.  There 
is  no  end  to  their  going  in  and  out ;  and  as  any  one  wishes  to 
go  out  he  places  himself  before  the  Speaker  and  makes  his 
bow  like  a  schoolboy  asking  his  tutor's  permission."  Meeting 
just  as  the  first  touch  of  winter  suggests  to  mankind  the  wis- 
dom of  getting  together  in  cities  to  keep  one  another  warm, 
breaking  off  in  December  for  a  month's  hunting  at  some  great 
nobleman's  seat  in  the  home  counties,  and  finally  dispersing 
to  their  country-houses  in  time  for  the  last  of  the  lilacs  and 
the  laburnums,  the  members  of  George  the  Third's  second 
Parliament  had  little  to  complain  of.1    That  easy-going  assem- 

1  Fox's  first  Parliament  was  up  in  May  four  years  out  of  the  six.  Offi- 
cial people  grumbled  wofully  because  the  Birthday  kept  them  in  town 
till  after  the  fourth  of  June.  And  yet  Burke  found  it  no  easy  matter  to 
get  his  flock  to  London,  even  for  so  short  a  session.  "I  would  wish," 
wrote  the  Duke  of  Richmond  to  him  from  Goodwood  in  November,  1772, 
"  not  to  stir  from  hence  till  after  Christmas,  as  I  have  engaged  a  large 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES   FOX.  433 

bly,  in  its  character  of  an  aristocratic  debating  society,  at  once 
acknowledged  Charles  Fox  as  its  hero ;  and  in  its  social  capac- 
ity it  almost  as  soon  accepted  him  as  a  favorite.  The  greatest 
master  of  the  art  of  reply  that  Parliament  ever  saw,  his  col- 
leagues all  but  unanimously  pronounced  him  the  best  fellow 
that  ever  lived.  The  qualities  by  which  he  acquired  that  rep- 
utation are  pleasantly  indicated  in  an  undated  letter,  probably 
of  the  year  1772,  from  his  friend  Crawford — who  wras  a  man 
of  parts  and  vivacity,  but  too  self-absorbed  and  affected  ever 
to  have  made  a  successful  politician.  "  You  will  be  delighted," 
this  gentleman  wrote  to  Stephen  Fox,  "  to  hear  that  I  had  the 
misfortune  to  speak  a  few  days  ago  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. If  I  was  the  oldest  and  dearest  friend  you  had  in  the 
world,  you  could  not  have  wrished  me  to  succeed  wTorse  than  I 
did.  It  was  a  prepared  speech ;  ill-timed,  ill  received,  ill  de- 
livered, languid,  plaintive,  and  everything  as  bad  as  possible. 
Add  to  all  this  that  it  was  very  loqg ;  because,  being  pom- 
pously begun,  I  did  not  know  how  the  devil  to  get  out  of  it. 
The  only  thing  I  said  which  was  sensible  or  to  the  purpose 
was  misrepresented  by  Burke.  Charles  was  not  ashamed  to 
acknowledge  me  in  my  distress.  He  explained  and  defended 
what  I  had  said  with  spirit,  warmth,  and  great  kindness  to  me. 
I  am  really  more  pleased  at  receiving  a  proof  of  kindness  from 
Charles,  whom  I  admire  and  love  more  and  more  every  day, 
than  I  am  hurt  at  not  succeeding  in  a  thing  in  which  I  had  no 
right  to  succeed."  Such  was  an  early  sample  of  the  generous 
acts  and  genial  words  by  which  through  thirty  years  of  hope- 
less opposition  Fox  recompensed  the  services  of  the  trusty 
body-guard  who  never  deserted  him  for  all  that  king  or  min- 
ister had  to  give.  "  I  am  much  of  opinion,"  wrote  Lord  Bath- 
urst  to  Lady  Suffolk  when  Walpole  was  in  power,  "that  a  cer- 

party  to  come  here  on  the  first  of  December  and  stay  a  month  to  fox- 
hunt." "  To  act  with  any  sort  of  effect,"  so  Burke  urged  on  Lord  Rock- 
ingham, "  the  principal  of  your  friends  ought  to  be  called  to  town  a  full 
week  before  the  meeting.  Lord  John  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  plead  any 
sort  of  excuse.  He  ought  to  be  allowed  a  certain  decent  and  reasonable 
portion  of  fox-hunting  to  put  him  in  wind  for  the  parliamentary  race  he 
is  to  run  ;  but  anything  more  is  intolerable." 

28 


434  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

tain  man,  who  has  now  by  far  the  greatest  levees  of  any  sub- 
ject in  England,  would  find  it  difficult,  after  laying  down  his 
post,  to  make  up  a  party  at  quadrille  if  he  resolved  to  play 
only  with  three  personal  friends."  Very  different  was  the 
compliment  paid  to  the  Whigs,  both  leader  and  followers,  at 
the  most  desperate,  but  in  the  eyes  of  every  true  member  of 
the  party  the  most  memorable,  period  of  their  history. 
"  There  are  only  forty  of  them,"  it  was  said  in  1794 ;  "  but 
every  man  of  them  would.be  hanged  for  Fox."1 

People  who  in  February,  1772,  were  told  that  Lord  North 
had  lost  a  subordinate,  at  once  took  it  for  granted  that  Lord 
Kockingham  had  gained  a  follower.  "  Charles  Fox,"  wrote 
Gibbon,  "  is  commenced  patriot,  and  is  already  attempting  to 
pronounce  the,  words  '  country,'  *  liberty,'  'corruption,'  with 
what  success  time  will  discover."  But  when  he  assured  Lord 
Ossory  that  he  was  safe  from  the  danger  of  going  into  opposi- 
tion, Fox  knew  himself  better  than  did  any  of  his  critics.  His 
conduct  during  the  spring  and  winter  sessions  of  1772  was  the 
model  for  a  young  politician  who  has  left  the  ministry  on  a 
point  of  conscience.  After  he  had  liberated  his  soul  about  the 
question,  or  rather  the  group  of  questions,  which  had  banished 
him  from  office,  he  preserved  a  modest  silence ;  interfering 

1  "What  Fox  must  have  been  for  Adam  and  Fitzpatrick,  for  Lord  Der- 
by, Lord  John  Townshend,  and  Lord  Lauderdale  may  be  judged  from  his 
behavior  towards  people  whom  he  did  not  even  know  by  name.  When 
Pitt  was  doubtful  about  a  face,  he  would  look  hard  at  its  possessor  until 
he  came  within  speaking  distance,  and  then  wTould  look  uneasily  away ; 
but  Fox  nodded  to  everybody  who  appeared  to  recognize  him, 'or  whom 
he  fancied  that  he  had  seen  before.  The  parish  schoolmaster  of  Clapham 
— a  strong  Tory,  as  may  well  be  supposed — went  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons to  hear  a  debate,  but  could  not  make  his  way  inside.  A  stout  mem- 
ber who  happened  to  be  passing  perceived  that  he  was  in  difficulties ; 
rescued  him  from  the  tyranny  of  the  doorkeepers ;  carried  him  into  the 
gallery;  pointed  out  Dunclas,  Whitbread,  and  Sheridan;  and  answered 
all  his  questions  about  the  business  of  the  day.  After  a  while  the  Speak- 
er named  Mr.  Fox,  and  the  awe-struck  visitor  beheld  his  protector  rise 
from  his  seat  and  commence  a  furious  attack  upon  the  ministry.  The 
young  people  at  Clapham,  among  whom  the  man  was  something  of  an 
oracle,  noticed  that  he  never  said  a  word  against  Fox  from  that  time 
forward. 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  435 

mildly  and  briefly  on  matters  relating  to  the  department  in 
which  he  had  served  before  his  retirement.  But  he  had  given 
the  ministers  too  marked  a  sample  of  his  quality  in  the  de- 
bates on  the  Marriage  Bill  for  them  to  delude  themselves  into 
the  belief  that  he  would  be  content  to  sit  forever  among  the 
army  contractors  and  retired  Anglo-Indians  below  the  gang- 
way, helping  his  former  colleagues  when  they  were  in  a  diffi- 
culty over  their  Navy  estimates,  and  telling  for  them  in  a  di- 
vision when  a  Treasury  whip  happened  to  be  away  at  his  din- 
ner. North  trusted  him  as  the  man  in  the  story  trusted  the 
leopard's  cub  which  had  tasted  his  blood ;  and  since  Charles 
Fox  could  not  be  shot,  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  muzzle 
him  with  all  despatch.  The  year  which  commenced  with  his 
resignation  ended  with  a  reconstruction  of  the  government 
devised  for  the  sole  object  of  recovering  his  services  and  in- 
suring the  ministry  against  his  possible  hostility.  A  king's 
friend  was  thrust  up-stairs  into  an  Irish  vice-treasurership ;  a 
nobleman  who  had  been  a  friend  of  Lord  Chatham  was  thrust 
down-stairs,  and  a  large  bag  of  public  money  flung  after  him ; 
and  the  chair  at  the  Treasury  table,  which  had  been  emptied 
with  so  little  ceremony  towards  individuals  and  at  so  great  an 
expense  to  the  taxpayer,  was  respectfully  offered  to  Fox.  The 
salary,  poor  for  those  days,  did  not  amount  to  half  of  the  thir- 
ty-five hundred  a  year  which  was  paid  to  a  Yice-treasurer  of 
Ireland  for  living  idle  in  London ;  but  Charles  had  set  his  af- 
fections upon  a  post  where  he  could  learn  the  work  and  enti- 
tle himself  to  the  reversion  of  the  Chancellorship  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. Fame  he  regarded  as  a  prize  more  enticing,  and 
certainly  in  his  case  less  evanescent,  than  money.  His  father 
was  supremely  contented  at  seeing  him  once  more  settled  in 
life ;  and  the  delight  of  the  old  peer  was  reflected  in  the  let- 
ters of  his  correspondents.  "I  am  much  obliged,"  wrote  a 
trusty  friend  of  the  family,  "  by  your  kindness  in  acquainting 
me  of  the  arrangement  made  in  favor  of  Charles.  I  congrat- 
ulate you  and  Lady  Holland  upon  it  most  sincerely,  as  I  am 
persuaded  that  this  event  will  be  attended  by  many  circum- 
stances which  must  give  you  both  pleasure.  I  make  no  doubt 
that  his  present  position  will  soon  make  a  great  change  in 


436  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

other  tilings,  much,  to  your  satisfaction  and  my  most  ardent 
wishes." 

The  prediction  was  kindly  meant  and  speedily  falsified.  It 
needed  more  than  the  possession  of  a  small  place  and  the  hope 
of  a  great  one  to  effect  a  radical  change  in  the  nature  of 
Charles  Fox.  At  whatever  Board  he  might  have  been  doing 
business  in  the  daytime,  when  evening  came  he  appeared  in 
the  House  of  Commons  as  headstrong,  as  unbridled,  as  impul- 
sive as  ever.  In  the  historical  debates  of  May,  1773 — when 
the  House  of  Commons  first  gravely  and  sedately  condemned 
the  rapacity  of  Lord  Clive,  and  then  balanced  the  accounts  of 
patriotism  and  morality  by  putting  on  record  its  gratitude  for 
his  great  and  meritorious  services  to  the  country — Fox  furi- 
ously declaimed  against  the  conqueror  of  India  as  "  the  origin 
of  all  plunder,  and  the  source  of  all  robbery."  His  impetu- 
osity, which  arose  from  feelings  honorable  to  him  as  a  man, 
was  not  inconsistent  with  his  obligations  as  an  official;  for 
the  matter  at  issue  was  admittedly  an  open  question,  where 
the  king  differed  from  the  prime-minister,  while  the  attorney- 
general  led  for  the  attack,  and  the  solicitor- general  for  the 
defence.  But  in  the  subsequent  month,  when  the  contro- 
versy was  over  and  done  with,  and  the  glorious  criminal  had 
been  censured,  thanked,  and  pardoned — when  Parliament  had 
agreed  to  condone  the  past,  and,  intent  upon  securing  Hin- 
dostan  from  oppression  in  the  future,  was  calmly  engaged 
upon  the  details  of  a  bill  for  the  better  government  of  our 
Eastern  dependencies — Fox  interpolated  in  the  discussion  an 
invective  hurled  straight  into  Clive's  face  with  such  pointed 
and  unsparing  vehemence  that  the  audience  seemed  to  recog- 
nize an  imitation  of  the  apostrophe  to  Catiline  in  the  mouth 
of  a  speaker  who  had  too  much  of  his  own  to  borrow  from 
any  one.  It  does  not  require  a  Sallust  to  depict  the  conster- 
nation witli  which  Lord  North,  the  year  before  a  general  elec- 
tion, saw  the  most  powerful  Commoner  in  England,  with  ten 
votes  in  his  pocket,1  making  his  exit  from  the  House  in  an 

1  "We  shall  come  very  strong  into  Parliament,"  wrote  Clive,  in  1768; 
"  seven  without  opposition,  and  probably  one  more.    Lord  Clive,  Shrews- 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  437 

agony  of  rage  and  shame  beneath  the  withering  rhetoric  of  a 
Commissioner  of  the  Treasury. 

As  long  as  the  ministry  was  responsible  for  the  proceedings 
of  one  who  viewed  his  fellow -creatures  in  the  light  of  so 
many  subjects  for  a  philippic,  it  was  never  likely  to  want 
enemies  either  in  Parliament  or  without  it.  At  the  end  of 
the  first  month  of  the  session  of  1774,  Charles  Fox  detected 
in  the  corner  of  his  newspaper  a  letter,  purporting  to  be  writ- 
ten by  "A  South  Briton,"  which  traced  back  the  prevailing 
corruption  and  immorality  of  the  age  to  the  date  of  the  re- 
bellion against  James  the  Second.  He  pounced  upon  the  op- 
portunity of  reviving  the  laurels  that  he  had  won,  and  pos- 
sibly of  obtaining  the  crown  of  martyrdom  that  he  so  narrow- 
ly missed,  in  the  course  of  that  broil  between  the  House  of 
Commons  and  the  printers,  to  which  he  still  looked  back  as 
the  most  enlivening  fortnight  of  his  existence.  So  seductive 
was  his  tongue,  and  so  inveterate  the  senatorial  habit  of  re- 
garding the  daily  press  as  a  criminal  organization,  that  he 
actually  persuaded  the  collective  wisdom  of  the  country  to 
pass  a  resolution  ordering  the  attorney -general  to  proceed 
against  the  author  and  publishers  of  a  performance  which 
was  as  absolutely  unexceptionable  as  it  was  detestably  dull, 
on  the  farcical  plea  that  it  was  a  libel  "  on  the  era  of  the  glori- 
ous Kevoiution."  But,  before  the  debate  was  concluded,  Fox 
revealed  a  glimpse  of  that  better  self  which  was  never  out  of 
sight  for  many  hours  together.  Mr.  Thomas  Townshend,  with 
some  reason,  but  more  ill-nature,  taunted  the  government  with 
their  inconsistency  in  prosecuting  an  anonymous  scribbler — 
who,  in  the  poverty  of  his  intellect  and  a  temporary  dearth 
of  gossip,  had  earned  a  dinner  by  lampooning  the  Whigs  of 
1688 — when  they  had  pensioned  notorious  and  virulent  Jac- 
obites like  Dr.  Shebbeare  and  Dr.  Johnson.     Fox,  who  was 

bury;  Richard  Clive,  Montgomery ;  William  and  George  Clive,  Bishop's 
Castle;  John  Walsh,  Worcester ;  Henry  Strachey,  Pontefract;  and  Ed- 
mund Maskelyne,  probably  either  for  Whitechurch  or  Cricklade."  "  He 
has  terminated  at  fifty,"  said  Horace  Walpole,  in  November,  1774,  "  a  life 
of  so  much  glory,  reproach,  art,  wealth,  and  ostentation.  He  had  just 
named  ten  members  for  the  new  Parliament." 


438  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

just  then  in  the  first  flush  of  pride  and  satisfaction  at  the 
privilege  of  being  admitted  to  dine  twice  a  month  with  John- 
son,1 and  who  would  as  soon  have  thought  of  sitting  at  table 
with  Shebbeare  as  of  standing  by  him  on  the  pillory,  rose  in- 
dignantly to  protest  against  the  unfairness  of  publicly  coup- 
ling two  such  names  in  the  same  indictment.  "  I  should,"  he 
went  on  to  say,  "  be  very  much  against  persecuting  a  man  of 
great  literary  abilities  for  any  opinions  which  he  may  happen 
to  drop  in  works  not  professedly  political.  It  would  be  very 
far  from  encouraging  literature,  which  is  ever  best  encouraged 
in  a  free  government."  The  sentiment  was  just ;  though  it 
could  be  reconciled  with  the  proposal  which  was  before  the 
House  only  on  the  theory  that  any  one  who  attacked  the 
government  in  print  must  expect  to  be  punished  unless  he 
could  bring  evidence  that  he  was  a  great  writer.  But  the 
generous  warmth  of  the  young  man  redeemed  the  inconse- 
quence of  his  arguments.  Three  years  before,  in  the  debates 
on  the  arrest  of  the  printers,  Townshend  had  made  an  attack 
upon  Johnson  and  his  pension  precisely  similar  to  that  by 
which  he  had  on  this  occasion  indulged  his  spleen ;  and  Wed- 
derburn  had  replied  with  a  pointed  and  elaborate  panegyric 
upon  the  author  of  the  "Dictionary"  and  the  "Bambler," 
which  might  be  supposed  to  have  been  more  gratifying  to  the 
object  of  it  than  the  brief  and  general  terms  in  which  Fox 
paid  his  tribute  to  literature.  Wedderburn  left  the  Whigs 
for  the  Tories,  and  Fox  the  Tories  for  the  Whigs ;  but  their 
common  client,  the  most  famous  Tory  outside  Parliament  be- 
tween Swift  and  Scott,  would  never  allow  party  spirit  to  mod- 
ify the  very  different  measure  of  respect  which  he  entertained 

1  The  Club  was  formed  early  in  1764.  "  After  about  ten  years,'1  said 
Boswell,  "  instead  of  supping  weekly,  it  was  resolved  to  dine  together 
once  a  fortnight  during  the  meeting  of  Parliament."  Fox  was  elected 
in  the  spring  of  1774,  and  made  the  best  of  listeners.  Johnson  was  much 
exercised  by  his  not  taking  his  share  of  the  talk,  and  charged  him  with 
not  caring  to  row  unless,  as  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  pulled  first  oars. 
But  Fox  knew  what  a  treat  he  was  enjoying ;  and  his  silence  was  the 
measure  of  his  respect  for  a  company  whose  names  would  be  remember- 
ed when  three  fourths  of  the  cabinet  had  been  forgotten. 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  439 

for  his  two  defenders.  Towards  Lord  Loughborough  he  ob- 
served a  cold  neutrality,  which  all  who  knew  their  man  rec- 
ognized as  the  thin  veil  of  profound  contempt;  while  for 
Fox  he  cherished  a  lively  and  willing  gratitude,  which  grew 
all  the  firmer  as  the  political  gulf  between  them  was  agitated 
by  fiercer  and  ever  fiercer  tempests.  The  heartiest  expression 
of  his  gratitude  and  regard  wTas  uttered  in  the  very  throes  of 
the  mortal  duel  that  sent  to  the  wall  for  half  the  century  the 
principles  which  Fox  represented  and  which  Johnson  made 
it  his  duty  to  hate.  "  I  am  for  the  king  against  Fox,"  he 
would  say  to  those  who  asked  him  how  he  was  affected  tow- 
ards the  Coalition  Ministry ;  "  but  I  am  for  Fox  against  Pitt. 
The  king  is  my  master,  but  Fox  is  my  friend." 

At  no  time  wrould  the  ministers  have  liked  their  young  col- 
league the  better  for  thrusting  them  into  a  quarrel  with  the 
newspapers ;  but  in  February,  1774,  they  were  less  inclined 
than  ever  to  rejoice  at  having  upon  their  hands  another 
Wheble,  and  possibly  another  Wilkes.  The  House  of  Com- 
mons wras  already  deep  in  a  mess  which  Charles  Fox  had  been 
the  most  active  in  stirring,  though  it  was  originally  com- 
pounded by  one  who  was  almost  as  troublesome  to  sober  and 
unwarlike  people  as  himself.  All  London  was  talking  of  a 
man  whose  fame  as  a  politician  is  now  dim  almost  to  extinc- 
tion, and  who,  as  a  writer  on  philology,  has  shared  the  fate 
of  specialists  who  start  upon  their  discoveries  before  science 
has  ascertained  what  is  the  necessary  outfit  for  an  explorer. 
But  John  Home  had  a  great  and  varied  reputation  while  he 
lived,  and  long  enough  afterwards  to  be  honored  with  the 
most  florid,  and  far  from  the  least  amusing,  of  those  biogra- 
phies of  sixty  years  ago,  which  were  adulatory,  but  never  un- 
candid  ;  absurd,  but  never  dull.  There  we  learn  that  though, 
like  Pericles,  he  rarely  laughed,  like  Alcibiades  he  could  suit 
himself  to  the  humors  of  other  men ;  that  he  could  enjoy  his 
wine  with  Homer  and  Ennius,  could  draw  a  character  with 
Tacitus,  and  was  as  ready  to  accept  money  from  his  friends 
as  Pliny  and  Cicero ;  that  during  his  career  he  was  as  artful 
in  counsel  as  Ulysses,  as  cool  in  action  as  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough, and  as  self-confident  as  Michael  Angelo ;  and  that, 


4tt0  THE  EARLY    HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

when  the  end  came,  he  was  as  ready  to  die,  and  as  desirous  to 
have  a  simple  funeral,  as  Titus  Pomponius  Atticus.1  But,  in 
truth,  his  character  and  powers  were  not  of  the  heroic  order ; 
and  the  people  who  had  parallel  histories  and  similar  disposi- 
tions with  Home  were  to  be  found  in  his  own  country  and 
his  own  half-century.  He  was  the  earliest,  and  for  practical 
business  by  far  the  ablest,  of  a  class  of  men  to  whom  English- 
men owe  a  debt  of  gratitude  which  they  are,  not  inexcusably, 
somewhat  unwilling  to  acknowledge.  Among  the  most  la- 
mentable results  of  a  system  of  coercion  and  repression  is  the 
deteriorating  effect  which  it  produces  npon  those  who  brave 
it.  When  to  speak  or  write  one's  mind  on  politics  is  to  ob- 
tain the  reputation,  and  render  one's  self  liable  to  the  punish- 
ment, of  a  criminal,  social  discredit,  with  all  its  attendant 
moral  dangers,  soon  attaches  itself  to  the  more  humble  oppo- 
nents of  a  ministry.  To  be  outside  the  law  as  a  publisher  or 
a  pamphleteer  is  only  less  trying  to  conscience  and  conduct 
than  to  be  outside  the  law  as  a  smuggler  or  a  poacher ;  and 
those  who,  ninety  years  ago,  placed  themselves  within  the 
grasp  of  the  penal  statutes  as  they  were  administered  in  Eng- 
land and  barbarously  perverted  in  Scotland  were  certain  to 
be  very  bold  men,  and  pretty  sure  to  be  unconventional  up  to 
the  uttermost  verge  of  respectability.  As  an  Italian  Liberal 
was  sometimes  half  a  bravo,  and  a  Spanish  patriot  often  more 
than  half  a  brigand,  so  a  British  Kadical  under  George  the 
Third  had  generally,  it  must  be  confessed,  a  dash  of  the  Bo- 
hemian. Such,  in  a  more  or  less  mitigated  form,  were  Paine 
and  Cobbett,  Hunt,  Hone,  and  Holcroft ;  while  the  same 
causes  in  part  account  for  the  elfish  vagaries  of  Shelley  and 
the  grim  improprieties  of  Godwin.  But  when  we  recollect 
how  these,  and  the  like  of  these,  gave  up  every  hope  of  world- 
ly prosperity,  and  set  their  life  and  liberty  in  continual  hazard 
for  the  sake  of  that  personal  and  political  freedom  which  we 
now  exercise  as  unconsciously  as  we  breathe  the  air,  it  would 


1  The  only  worthy  whom  we  are  distinctly  told  he  did  not  resemble 
was  John  Wesley,  who  held,  as  did  not  Home,  "that  without  fasting  and 
early  rising  it  is  impossible  to  grow  in  grace." 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  441 

be  too  exacting  to  require  that  each  and  all  of  them  should 
have  lived  as  decorously  as  Perceval,  and  died  as  solvent  as 
Bishop  Tomline. 

At  the  commencement  of  1774,  Home's  fortunes,  which  sel- 
dom were  overflowing,  had  come  to  their  lowest  ebb.  Honest, 
impracticable,  insatiably  contentious,  and  inordinately  vain, 
he  had  thrown  away  almost  all  his  chances  and  his  friends.1 
He  had  lately  quitted  the  Church  (which  he  entered  as  a  youth 
under  strong  instigation  from  his  father),  and  had  exchanged 
the  vicarage  of  Brentford  for  a  cottage  where  he  was  study- 
ing jurisprudence  in  the  vain  hope  that  the  benchers  of  the 
Inner  Temple  would  admit  him  to  the  bar.  Sanguine,  indeed, 
must  he  have  been  to  spend  six  years  of  such  industry  as  his 
on  the  labor  of  preparing  himself  for  a  profession  the  gate 
to  which  was  easily  defended  by  the  members  of  the  most 
jealous  of  guilds  against  an  interloper  who  had  no  partisans 
at  his  back  to  help  him  in  forcing  an  entrance ;  for,  as  his 
biographer  expressly  states,  Home  was  at  this  period  "  one  of 
the  most  odious  men  in  the  kingdom."  The  same  peculiari- 
ties of  temper  which  in  after-years  brought  him  into  violent 
and  simultaneous  hostility  with  both  Pitt  and  Fox  had  now 
landed  him  in  the  singular  position  that  he  was  reading  law 
with  the  object  of  worrying  Mansfield,  and  writing  reams  of 
correspondence  filled  with  small-minded  and  grandly  .phrased 
abuse  of  Wilkes.  The  pair  of  patriots  had  abundance  of 
mutual  secrets  connected  with  the  money-lender,  the  vintner, 
the  horse-dealer,  and  even  the  old-clothes  man,  which  Home 
did  not  scruple  to  unpack  and  display  before  the  eyes  of  a 
laughing  public;  and  Wilkes  retaliated  by  extracting,  from 
the  parson  of  Brentford's  letter  of  January,  1776,  that  sen- 
tence which,  unluckily  for  its  author,  is  the  only  passage  in 
his  works  that  any  living  man,  except  a  lecturer  on  etymology, 
can  repeat  by  heart.  And  while  everybody  with  leisure  for 
such  a  problem  was  discussing  whether  it  was  worse  to  apol- 

1  "You,"  said  John  Home  to  his  brother  Benjamin,  the  most  prosper- 
ous market-gardener  of  the  day,  "  have  risen  by  your  gravity,  while  I 
have  sunk  by  my  levity." 


442  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

ogize  for  having  submitted  to  "the  infectious  hand  of  a 
bishop  "  or  to  have  shirked  paying  for  three  chintz  dressing- 
gowns  and  twenty  -  five  bottles  of  old  Jamaica  rum,  Junius 
infused  a  spark  of  common-sense  and  high  feeling  into  the  ig- 
noble altercation  by  reminding  Home  that  the  Wilkes  whom 
he  formerly  worshipped  was  the  same  man  as  the  "Wilkes 
whom  he  now  reviled,  and  that  the  sincere  friend  of  a  great 
cause  should  find  some  other  means  to  evince  his  love  for  it 
than  by  gloating  over  the  frailties  of  its  most  prominent  ad- 
vocate. 

Home's  wayward  and  haughty  spirit  was  shocked,  but  not 
tamed,  by  a  sense  of  his  isolation.  The  only  reward,  he  feel- 
ingly complained,  of  all  his  labors  and  sacrifices  was  that  the 
multitude,  for  whom  he  worked  and  suffered,  had  not  yet  torn 
him  in  pieces.  But  depression,  in  masculine  natures,  stops 
short  at  the  point  where  it  is  sinking  into  despair,  and- recoils 
towards  alert  and  courageous  action.  Home  was  in  a  mind  to 
shrink  from  nothing  which  would  enable  him  to  regain  his 
ground  in  the  race  for  popularity ;  and  he  soon  had  the  field 
clear  for  a  fresh  start.  Wilkes — who  had  been  dragged  into 
print  sorely  against  his  will,  and  had  written  only  one  letter 
for  every  two,  and  hardly  one  page  for  every  four,  of  his  ad- 
versary's— had  withdrawn  from  the  controversy  with  a  Par- 
thian fling  at  Home's  treachery  and  a  flourish  about  his  own 
sorrows  and  services.1  Junius,  having  signed  his  redoubted 
pseudonym  for  the  last  time,  was  making  his  preparations  (a 
much  longer  and  heavier  business  then  than  now)  for  a  jour- 
ney to  the  distant  shore  where  he  was  to  fight  unmasked  and 
breast  to  breast  with  an  antagonist  of  sterner  mettle  than  any 


l  M 


Whether  you  proceed,  sir,  to  a  thirteenth  or  a  thirtieth  letter  is  to 
me  a  matter  of  the  most  entire  indifference.  You  will  no  longer  have  me 
your  correspondent.  All  the  efforts  of  your  malice  and  rancor  cannot  give 
me  a  moment's  disquietude.  Formerly,  in  exile,  when  I  was  urbe  patrid- 
que  extorris,  I  have  moistened  my  bread  with  tears.  The  rest  of  my  life 
I  hope  to  enjoy  my  morsel  at  home  in  peace  and  cheerfulness,  among 
those  I  love  and  honor,  far  from  the  malignant  eye  of  the  false  friend  and 
the  invidious  hypocrite."  The  thirteenth  letter  was  duly  sent  and  never 
answered. 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  443 

who  had  gone  forth  against  him  either  from  Brentford  or  St. 
James's.  As  early  as  June,  1773,  his  Majesty,  little  aware  of 
the  hidden  truth  with  which  his  words  were  weighted,  had  in- 
formed Lord  North  that,  though  he  knew  nothing  of  the  other 
gentlemen  who  applied  to  be  appointed  on  the  Council  of 
Bengal,  he  could  vouch  for  Mr.  Francis  being  a  man  of  tal- 
ents. With  no  competitor  left  to  outbid  him,  and  no  censor 
to  rebuke  him,  Home  lay  vigilantly  in  wait  for  an  opportunity 
of  recovering  caste  in  his  old  party ;  and  while  Charles  Fox 
remained  in  the  government  there  was  small  probability  that 
he  would  have  to  wait  in  vain. 

Mr.  William  Tooke,  of  Purley,  in  Surrey,  and  a  landed  pro- 
prietor in  the  East  of  England,  had  been  a  Wilkite  up  to  the 
time  when  it  became  necessary  to  choose  between  Home  and 
Wilkes.  Tooke  had  long  been  in  litigation  over  a  disputed 
right  of  enclosure  with  his  country  neighbor,  Mr.  Thomas  De 
Grey,  the  member  for  Norfolk.  The  contention  ran  its  usual 
course.  De  Grey,  as  lord  of  the  manor,  erected  a  fence ;  and 
Tooke,  who  was  a  commoner,  pulled  it  down.  Then  came  an 
action  for  trespass  and  a  challenge  to  fight  from  the  one  side, 
answered  by  a  citation  before  the  King's  Bench  from  the 
other ;  until  De  Grey,  who  held  that  the  law's  delay  was  not 
intended  for  members  of  Parliament,  got  one  of  his  colleagues 
to  introduce  into  the  Commons  a  private  bill  which  gave  him 
all  he  wanted.  Tooke  had  nobody  to  speak  for  him  in  the 
House  but  Aldermen  Sawbridge  and  Townshend;  and  such 
advocates,  as  he  well  knew,  would  do  his  cause  more  harm 
than  profit  in  a  contest  with  the  brother  of  Lord  North's  ex- 
attorney-general.  He  turned  for  advice  to  Horne,  who  at  once 
saw  his  chance  of  making  himself  into  a  political  martyr,  and 
at  the  same  time  of  serving  the  interests  of  as  good  a  friend 
as  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  one  who  was  seldom  anything  but  his 
own  enemy. 

A  petition  to  Parliament  was  presented  from  De  Grey,  and 
a  counter-petition  from  Tooke ;  and  they  were  duly  dealt  with 
by  the  Speaker  in  the  expeditious  and  rather  slovenly  manner 
in  which  nineteen  twentieths  of  the  enormous  mass  of  private 
business  that  falls  upon  the  House  of  Commons  must  necessa- 


4AA  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chaj\  X. 

rily  be  done,  if  it  is  to  be  done  at  all.  The  astonishment  of 
every  one  who  had  been  present  on  this  very  uninteresting  oc- 
casion was  great  when  in  the  Public  Advertiser  of  the  eleventh 
of  February  there  appeared  a  letter,  columns  long,  imputing 
to  Sir  Fletcher  Norton  deliberate  and  corrupt  partiality,  and 
charging  him  in  so  many  words  with  falsehood,  intentional 
chicane,  and  premeditated  knavery.  The  members  of  that 
Parliament  allowed  themselves  extraordinary  liberties  with 
their  Speaker;1  but  they  had  no  idea  of  extending  those  lib- 
erties to  the  world  outside.  And  yet,  when  the  letter  in  the 
Advertiser  was  brought  before  the  notice  of  the  House,  some 
among  the  milder  spirits,  weary  of  the  very  mention  of  Priv- 
ilege, entreated  that  Sir  Fletcher  Norton  should  carry  his  case 
to  the  ordinary  courts,  which  were  open  to  him  as  much  as  to 
any  other  citizen.  But  Charles  Fox  struck  in  with  a  clever 
and  well-timed  speech  which  summarily  extinguished  that 
pusillanimous  suggestion.  Was  the  House  of  Commons  (he 
asked),  with  its  undoubted  and  unbounded  judicial  authority, 
to  implore  an  inferior  tribunal  for  protection  ?  The  King's 
Bench  would  never  humiliate  itself  by  appealing  for  redress 
and  defence  to  the  Common  Pleas;  and  what  the  King's 
Bench,  in  majesty  and  strength,  was  to  the  Common  Pleas, 
that,  and  much  more,  was  the  House  of  Commons  to  the 
King's  Bench.  It  was  unanimously  resolved  that  Woodfall, 
the  publisher  of  the  Public  Advertiser,  should  be  ordered  to 
the  bar.  Woodfall  obe}7ed  the  summons,  and  with  sorrowful 
protestations  of  regret  for  his  share  in  the  transaction,  indicat- 
ed Home  as  the  writer  of  the  libel.    Having  got  the  name  of 

1  A  month  after  Norton  had  been  chosen  Speaker,  Sir  William  Mere- 
dith complained  that  he  had  been  "  traduced"  from  the  Chair.  Dowdes- 
well  moved  a  resolution  to  the  effect  that  Mr.  Speaker's  words  were  con- 
trary to  precedent  and  propriety.  "Two  pillars,"  said  Captain  Phipps, 
w  should  support  that  Chair,  experience  and  impartiality.  Experience, 
sir,  you  tell  us  that  you  have  not" — and  here  a  hasty  call  to  order  provid- 
ed the  gallant  officer  with  the  oratorical  effect  at  which  he  was  aiming. 
Burke,while  writing  a  petition  at  the  bar,  quoted  "  Hamlet "  at  the  Speaker 
along  the  whole  length  of  the  House;  and  when  he  made  his  celebrated 
allusion  to  Junius,  the  best-turned  phrase  amidst  that  inextricable  tangle 
of  gorgeous  metaphors  is  the  allusion  to  Sir  Fletcher's  eyebrows. 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  445 

the  principal,  the  more  reasonable  men  of  both  parties  were 
inclined  to  let  the  accessory  go ;  but  Fox,  relieving  Thurlow 
and  Wedderburn  of  their  functions  as  legal  advisers  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  North  of  his  responsibility  as  its 
leader,  and  making  at  least  one  speech  for  every  fresh  char- 
acter which  he  assumed,  succeeded  in  committing  the  govern- 
ment to  a  proposal  that  Woodfall  should  be  confined  in  the 
gate-house  of  Westminster.  Dowdeswell,  however,  pointed  out 
that  all  the  precedents  were  in  favor  of  the  House  intrusting 
its  prisoner  to  the  charge  of  its  own  sergeant-at-arms ;  not  to 
mention  the  extreme  unlikelihood  that  a  publisher  would  ever 
again  turn  evidence  against  his  authors,  if  he  was  to  be  re- 
warded for  his  information  by  being  sent  to  lie  in  the  common 
jail.  Lord  North,  who  was  watching  the  debate  with  eyes 
that  he  never  ventured  to  close  for  five  minutes  together 
while  he  had  Fox  for  a  colleague,  perceived  that  Dowdeswell 
had  convinced  the  House,  and,  with  an  awkward  playfulness 
which  rendered  his  vexation  all  the  more  apparent,  entreated 
the  executioner  who  had  bound  him  to  the  stake  to  give  him 
back  his  liberty  of  action.  But  Fox  was  inexorable ;  and  the 
prime-minister,  driven  to  vote  for  a  course  which  he  disap- 
proved by  a  subordinate  whom  he  was  beginning  cordially  to 
detest,  begged  his  friends  to  divide  against  him,  and  thankful- 
ly accepted  the  humiliation  of  being  beaten  on  a  motion  of  his 
own  introducing  by  a  majority  of  more  than  two  to  one. 

As  soon  as  Woodfall  had  been  disposed  of,  an  order  was 
made  out  directing  the  Reverend  John  Home  to  attend  on 
the  sixteenth  of  February.  The  day  came,  and  the  House  was 
crowded,  as  it  always  will  be  crowded  when  any  folly  is  on 
foot ;  but  in  place  of  Home  himself,  there  came  a  civil  letter 
in  which  he  informed  the  Commons  that  he  should  be  very 
glad  to  wait  upon  them  if  they  would  be  good  enough  to  ab- 
stain from  addressing  him  by  a  title  which  he  no  longer  recog- 
nized. Lord  North  tried  to  get  the  laugh  on  his  own  side  by 
observing  that  Mr.  Home  thought,  and  before  they  had  done 
with  him  would  have  the  best  of  reasons  for  thinking,  an  or- 
der of  the  House  as  infectious  as  the  hand  of  a  bishop ;  but 
there  was  no  mistaking  that  the  prevalent  feeling  even  among 


446  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

the  ministerialists  was  rather  of  shame  than  of  anger.  Into 
what  further  depths  of  ignominy  (asked  William  Burke) 
would  a  false  sense  of  its  honor  and  an  extravagant  concep- 
tion of  its  privileges  debase  that  which  had  once  been  the 
first  deliberative  assembly  in  the  world?  The  latest  adver- 
saries (he  reminded  his  hearers)  over  whom  they  had  tri- 
umphed were  a  milkman  and  a  chimney-sweep;  and  it  was 
difficult  to  say  at  what  point  of  degradation  they  would  stop, 
so  long  as  they  entertained  the  notion  that  it  enhanced  their 
dignity  to  have  the  lowest  wretches  in  God's  creation  pros- 
trate before  them. 

On  the  morrow  Home,  only  too  glad  to  be  captured,  was 
brought  up  in  custody  amidst  the  intense  curiosity  of  a  gen- 
eration among  whom  a  clergyman  who  had  renounced  his 
calling  was  as  rare  a  spectacle  as  a  monarch  who  had  lost  his 
crown.  The  appearance  and  bearing  of  the  culprit  disappoint- 
ed the  expectation  and  conciliated  the  favor  of  his  judges. 
Dressed  neatly  in  gray,  though  without  his  gown,  Home  be- 
gan by  explaining  his  notion  of  his  own  position  in  respectful 
and  manly  words;  and  the  remarks  which  he  interjected  in 
the  course  of  the  proceedings  were  admirably  placed,  and  en- 
tirely unanswerable.  His  main  contention  was  that  the  law 
officers  had  nothing  against  him  except  the  unsupported  testi- 
mony of  a  man  who  had  accused  him  in  order  to  clear  him- 
self. Wedderburn,  veiling  under  a  cloud  of  elegant  plausi- 
bilities the  confession  that  such  was  indeed  the  case,  urged 
the  House  to  adjourn  the  debate  in  a  speech  which  Dunning 
likened  to  the  argument  of  a  prosecutor  who  should  request 
the  bench  to  allow  him  a  day  or  two  to  look  about  for  fresh 
evidence  on  the  understanding  that  if  time  were  given,  the 
prisoner  should  without  fail  be  proved  guilty.  But  the  House 
of  Commons,  while  ready  to  usurp  the  authority  of  the  courts 
of  justice,  had  no  intention  of  binding  itself  by  their  rules ; 
and  the  adjournment  was  carried  in  spite  of  Edmund  Burke, 
who  entreated  Lord  North  to  remove  from  sight  that  "  mon- 
ster of  a  motion,"  and  to  desist  from  engaging  Parliament  in 
a  war  with  individuals,  where  victory  could  only  be  bought 
with  the  tears,  and  defeat  would  be  attended  with  the  scorn, 
of  the  whole  kingdom. 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  EOX.  447 

The  affair  resulted  in  the  second  of  the  two  contingencies 
which  Burke  had  foreshadowed.  When  the  inquiry  was  re- 
sumed, it  appeared  that  the  new  witnesses — to  secure  whom 
the  House  of  Commons  had  borrowed  a  leaf  from  the  code  of 
procedure  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition — were  compositors  from 
Woodfall's  establishment ;  one  of  whom  had  printed  the  man- 
uscript, but  did  not  know  the  handwriting,  and  another  had 
heard  his  master  say  that  Home  was  the  author  of  the  letter. 
Parliament,  like  the  old  gentleman  in  Racine's  comedy,  had 
of  late  years  never  been  happy  except  when  it  was  sitting  as  a 
criminal  court;  and  by  this  time  even  the  George  Onslows 
had  learned  enough  law  to  know  that  a  man  must  not  be  con- 
victed  on  hearsay  testimony.  Fox,  balked  of  his  prey,  turned 
angrily  upon  his  brother-huntsmen,  and  upbraided  the  ministers 
for  having  passed  over  the  publisher,  of  whom  they  were  sure, 
in  order  to  get  at  the  writer,  who  had,  after  all,  contrived  to 
escape  their  clutches.  A  mutiny  in  the  ranks  of  the  govern- 
ment seldom  fails  to  produce  from  the  Opposition  a  copious 
expression  of  that  sympathy  which  is  more  blessed  to  him 
that  gives  than  to  him  that  receives.  "From  the  very  first," 
observed  Barre,  "I  augured  that  this  business  would  end  ill, 
and  I  felt  inconceivable  pain  for  the  noble  lord.  His  followers 
were  not  to  be  depended  on  to  fight  for  him.  I  know  some 
little  about  the  arrangement  of  troops ;  but  in  my  life  I  never 
saw  a  body  of  regulars  cut  so  wretched  a  figure."  And  then, 
passing  from  condolence  to  irony,  the  orator  pointed  to  the 
unhappy  leader  of  the  House,  as  he  sat  between  the  solicitor- 
general,  who  had  mismanaged  the  conduct  of  the  case,  and  the 
Commissioner  of  the  Treasury,  whose  rashness  and  self-will 
had  been  the  origin  of  all  the  ministerial  difficulties.  "  We 
have  everything,"  he  said,  "to  hope  from  the  noble  lord.  He 
is  at  present  most  happily  situated.  If  he  wants  law,  he  has 
but  to  look  to  the  left ;  while  if  he  stands  in  need  of  common- 
sense,  his  spirited  friend  on  the  right  can  abundantly  supply 
him."  Amidst  a  shower  of  such  taunts  the  curtain  was 
dropped  upon  the  miserable  farce,  and  Home  walked  from 
the  bar  a  free  and  a  made  man.  The  attention  which  his 
stroke  of  judicious  audacity  had  attracted  to  Mr.  De  Grey's 


448  THE  EARLY   HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

proceedings  in  Parliament  stayed  the  progress  of  the  enclos- 
ure bill  until  it  had  been  altered  to  the  satisfaction  of  all 
whose  interests  it  affected.  Rescued  in  a  hopeless  strait,  Mr. 
Tooke  repaid  his  preserver  with  an  affection  that  was  neither 
short-lived  nor  barren.  Home,  soon  or  late,  received  from  his 
grateful  friend  over  eight  thousand  pounds  in  money,  a  second 
name  for  himself,  and  the  suggestion  of  that  affected  title  by 
which,  much  better  than  by  its  contents,  his  book  is  known.1 
But  his  exertions  acquired  for  him  a  reputation  which  extend- 
ed beyond  the  garden-walls  of  Purley,  and  procured  him  other 
benefactors  hardly  less  generous  than  its  large-hearted  owner. 
At  every  successive  crisis  in  our  liberties,  when  tyranny  was 
so  'firmly  in  the  ascendant  that  the  hour  demanded,  not  a 
champion,  but  a  victim,  all  eyes  were  turned  on  the  man  who 
had  braved  the  terrors  of  Privilege;  and  Ilorne  Tooke  al- 
ways responded  to  the  call,  less  eagerly  and  less  boisterously 
as  age  and  wisdom  grew  on  him,  but  with  the  same  constancy 
and  self-possession  as  of  old.  He  subsisted  till  past  sixty 
upon  means  that  were  small  and  precarious;  but  at  length 
the  people,  mindful  of  the  hardships  which  he  had  undergone 
in  their  cause,  resolved  that  so  much  of  his  life  as  was  passed 
outside  Newgate  and  the  Tower  should  be  passed  comforta- 
bly. Liberal  subscriptions,  followed,  as  time  went  on,  by  sub- 
stantial legacies,  made  him  richer  than  he  would  have  become 
if  he  had  been  permitted  to  wear  the  one  gown  or  had  never 
thrown  off  the  other.2  City  merchants  and  Cornish  Dissent- 
ers could  refuse  nothing  to  one  whose  protest  against  the 
coercion  of  America  by  fire  and  sword  had  landed  him  in  a 

1  As  a  matter  of  fact,  not  a  line  of  Home  Tooke's  magnum  opus  was 
written  at  Purley.  The  diversions  in  which  lie  there  indulged  himself 
consisted  in  riding  over  the  Downs  by  day,  and  playing  piquet  with  his 
patron  of  an  evening. 

2  In  1773,  when  Home  left  the  Church  in  order  to  read  for  the  bar,  he 
had  nothing  at  all.  He  began  the  nineteenth  century  in  a  large  house 
and  grounds  at  Wimbledon  with  a  clear  annuity  of  eight  hundred  pounds. 
His  style  of  living  rose,  until  his  friends  estimated  his  yearly  expenditure 
at  more  than  twice  that  sum ;  and  he  died  leaving  a  handsome  fortune, 
a  cellar  of  good  wine,  and  a  library  which  contained  a  first  folio  of  Shake- 
speare. 


1772-74.]  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  449 

prison  from  which  he  did  not  issue  until  he  had  left  his  health 
behind  him ;  and  who  had  been  placed  in  jeopardy  of  the 
gallows  by  his  declared  determination  that  he  would  not  cease 
his  advocacy  of  parliamentary  reform,  as  a  remedy  for  domes- 
tic misgovernment,  because  we  happened  to  be  fighting  with 
Jacobins  in  the  Netherlands. 

Woodfall  was  discharged  from  custody  after  acknowledging 
the  enormity  of  his  fault,  and  imploring  the  clemency  of  Par- 
liament in  abject  terms ;  but  there  remained  an  offender  from 
whom  no  apology  could  be  accepted,  if,  indeed,  there  had  been 
the  slightest  chance  that  any  would  be  forthcoming.  Fox 
this  time  had  sinned  beyond  expiation.  There  was  an  im- 
pression abroad  that,  in  harassing  Lord  North,  he  had  acted 
under  secret  orders  from  the  king;  and  his  Majesty  had  no 
right  to  complain  if  that  impression  was  strongest  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  had  known  what  it  was  to  serve  him  as 
leaders  in  the  House  of  Commons.  "It  is  supposed  by  most 
sensible  people,"  wrote  Lord  Chatham,  "  that  Mr.  Charles  Fox 
did  not  venture  on  a  line  of  conduct  which  almost  unavoida- 
bly called  for  the  resentment  of  Lord  North  without  support 
from  some  part  of  administration,  and  that  that  part  must 
have  some' encouragement  from  the  closet."  But  the  suppo- 
sition was  quite  unfounded ;  for  the  king  already  disliked 
Fox  too  heartily  even  to  use  him  as  an  instrument  for  plagu- 
ing his  own  prime-minister.  His  dislike  had  not  its  source, 
as  some  aver,  in  disapprobation  of  the  loose  and  ill-ordered 
life  which  the  young  politician  had  hitherto  been  leading. 
George  the  Third  knew  better  than  to  be  fastidious  about  the 
private  conduct  of  the  peers  and  commoners  who  consented 
to  be  the  agents  of  his  favorite  political  system.  When  Sand- 
wich was  appointed  secretary  of  state,  the  king  took  special 
pains  to  inform  that  immaculate  statesman  of  his  coming  hon- 
ors in  the  manner  which  would  be  the  most  flattering  and 
agreeable  to  tkeir  recipient ; '  and  a  monarch  who  went  out  of 

1  "  If  you  have  not  yet  intimated  to  Lord  Sandwich  my  intentions  of 
intrusting  him  with  the  seals  of  the  Northern  Department,  I  wish  you 
would  not  longer  defer,  as  the  manner  greatly  enhances  or  diminishes 
every  favor"  (George  the  Third  to  Lord  North,  December  14, 1770). 

29 


450  THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  [Chap.  X. 

his  way  to  make  a  Mordecai  out  of  Sandwich  was  not  likely, 
on  moral  grounds,  to  make  a  Hainan  of  anybody.  The  king's 
antipathy  to  his  Junior  Lord  of  the  Treasury  did  not  spring 
from  the  experience  of  what  was  bad  in  the  young  man's 
character,  but  from  the  promise  of  what  was  good.  Whether 
he  abetted  the  royal  policy,  or  whether  he  thwarted  it,  Fox 
never  managed  to  please  his  sovereign.  The  very  heat  with 
which  the  rising  orator  attacked  Wilkes  and  defended  Low- 
ther  was  ominous  and  alarming  in  the  eyes  of  a  ruler  who 
cherished  every  abuse  in  Church  and  State,  and  who  felt  an 
uneasy  presentiment  that,  to  whatever  purpose  fire  might  be 
put  for  the  moment,  its  ultimate  destination  was  to  burn  rub- 
bish. And  more  distasteful  still  in  the  highest  quarter  was 
the  uncalculating  and  unflinching  chivalry  with  which  Fox 
espoused  any  cause,  however  ostentatiously  it  might  be  frown- 
ed upon  at  St.  James's,  in  behalf  of  which  his  personal  convic- 
tions and  feelings  happened  to  be  enlisted.  The  spirit  and  the 
independence  which  he  exhibited  over  the  Dissenters'  Relief 
Bill  and  the  Royal  Marriage  Bill  were  noted  down  by  a 
master  who  seldom  pardoned  and  never  forgot.  The  king 
thenceforward  abode  in  patient  assurance  that  something 
would  ere  long  occur  to  justify  him  in  discharging  his  con- 
tumacious servant ;  and  as  soon  as  he  had  learned  the  circum- 
stances which  brought  about  the  defeat  of  the  government  on 
the  question  of  committing  Woodfall  to  prison,  he  wrote  to 
the  prime-minister  as  follows:  "I, am  greatly  incensed  at  the 
presumption  of  Charles  Fox  in  obliging  you  to  vote  with  him, 
and  approve  much  of  your  making  your  friends  vote  in  the 
majority.  Indeed,  that  young  man  has  so  thoroughly  cast  off 
every  principle  of  common  honor  and  honesty  that  he  must 
become  as  contemptible  as  he  is  odious;  and  I  hope  you  will 
let  him  know  you  are  not  insensible  of  his  conduct  towards 
you." 

The  delinquent  awaited  his  sentence  in  joyous  equanimity. 
When  he  appeared  at  Almack's  on  the  fifteenth  of  February, 
flushed  by  his  successful  rebellion  of  the  previous  evening, 
he  was  asked  on  all  sides  whether  North  had  turned  him  out. 
"•No,"  he  replied.     "  But  if  he  does,  I  will  write  to  congratu- 


1772-74.]      .  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.  451 

late  him  and  tell  him  that  if  lie  had  always  acted  with  the 
same  spirit,  I  should  not  have  differed  with  him  yesterday." 
The  prime-minister  needed  another  week's  pressure  from  the 
palace,  and  a  fresh  outbreak  of  insubordination  on  the  part  of 
Fox,  to  spur  him  towards  a  course  of  action  which  was  alien 
both  to  his  good-nature  and  his  indolence.  At  last  he  nerved 
himself  to  write  a  letter  which  was  said  to  run  thus :  "  Sir, — 
His  Majesty  has  thought  proper  to  order  a  new  Commission 
of  the  Treasury  to  be  made  out,  in  which  I  do  not  see  your 
name."  A  similar  story  is  told  about  a  very  recent  successor 
of  Lord  Korth,  and  perhaps  was  invented  for  one  of  his  pred- 
ecessors; but  whatever  the  form  of  the  communication  may 
have  been,  its  substance  soon  became  the  property  of  the  pub- 
lic. Twenty-four  hours  after  he  had  been  dismissed  from  of- 
fice, Fox  was  again  haranguing  the  House  of  Commons  with 
an  easy  magniloquence  which  provoked  a  Tory  baronet  into 
exclaiming  that  he  talked  as  if  the  fate  of  Caesar  and  of  Rome 
depended  on  his  conduct.  "  The  honorable  gentleman,"  re- 
marked the  speaker,  "  is  tender  in  years,  but  tough  in  politics, 
and,  if  I  do  not  mistake,  has  already  been  twice  in  and  twice 
out  of  place."  And  when  the  sitting  was  over,  and  the  full- 
dress  sarcasms  of  debate  gave  place  to  the  fraternal  raillery 
of  the  lobby,  George  Selwyn  took  the  earliest  opportunity  of 
setting  afloat  his  view  of  an  incident  which,  for  a  month  to 
come,  was  sure  to  be  in  everybody's  mouth.  "  Charles,"  he^ 
said,  "  for  the  future  I  will  eat  salt  fish  on  the  day  you  was 
turned  out.  You  shall  be  my  Charles  the  Martyr  now ;  for 
I  am  tired  of  your  great-grandfather,  the  old  one.  His  head 
can  never  be  sewed  on  again  ;  but  as  yours  can  be,  I  will  stick 
to  you." 

And  so  Fox  wTas  once  more  out,  and  out  for  good  ;  and  the 
first  portion  of  his  story  had  ended  in  a  climax  which  fitly 
and  harmoniously  crowned  the  preceding  narrative.  Still  of 
an  age  before  which  no  English  statesman  can  hope  to  accom- 
plish great  things,  he  had  at  any  rate  given  earnest  of  remark- 
able qualities.  He  had  shown  himself  to  possess  in  an  unu- 
sual degree  that  recuperative  power  wThich  is  all  but  indis- 
pensable in  a  career  where  no  one  who  fights  to  win  can  keep 


452     THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX.    [Chap.  X. 

himself  out  of  the  reach  of  a  knock-down  blow.  An  observ- 
ant veteran  watches  with  almost  pathetic  interest  the  bearing 
of  a  young  politician  who  has  been  flung  off  the  ladder  of 
promotion,  or  who  has  brought  down  upon  his  head  a  sudden 
avalanche  of  unpopularity ;  and  never  did  any  one  pick  him- 
self up  quicker  than  Charles  Fox,  and  go  to  work  again  with 
more  sublime  indifference  to  jeers  and  braises.  And  while 
his  elasticity  of  temperament  boded  well  for  his  own  hap- 
piness, those  who  looked  to  him  as  a  future  servant  of  his 
country  noticed  in  all  that  he  said  and  did  the  unmistakable 
tokens  of  an  ingrained  disinterestedness,  which  it  recpired 
only  a  good  cause  to  turn  into  heroism.  He  was  not  a  polit- 
ical adventurer,  but  a  knight-errant  roaming  about  in  search 
of  a  tilt,  or,  still  better,  of  a  melee;  and  not  much  caring  wheth- 
er his  foes  were  robbers  or  true  men,  if  only  there  were  enough 
of  them.  He  was  one  who,  in  a  venal  age,  looked  to  some- 
thing besides  the  main  chance ;  who,  when  he  had  set  his 
mind  or  his  fancy  on  an  enterprise,  never  counted  the  odds 
that  he  faced,  or  the  hundreds  a  year  that  he  forfeited.  But 
with  all  these  generous  gifts,  his  education  and  his  circum- 
stances almost  proved  too  much  for  him ;  and  it  was  the  in- 
stinct of  moral  self-preservation  which  drove  him  to  detach 
himself  from  his  early  surroundings,  and  find  safety  in  un- 
compromising hostility  to  that  evil  system  which  had  come 
so  near  to  spoiling  him. 

"  Are  wills  so  weak  ?     Then  let  not  mine  wait  long. 
Hast  thou  so  rare  a  poison  ?    Let  me  be 
Keener  to  slay  thee,  lest  thou  poison  me." 

Such  is  the  temper  in  which,  fortunately  for  mankind,  rare 
and  noble  natures  have  often  revolted  against  that  world 
whose  blighting  influence  they  had  begun  to  feel ;  and  such 
was  the  mood  of  Charles  Fox  when,  sick  of  a  prison-house 
whose  secrets  had  so  early  been  familiar  to  him,  he  dissolved 
his  partnership  with  Sandwich  and  Wedderburn,  and  united 
himself  to  Burke  and  Chatham  and  Savile  in  their  crusade 
against  the  tyranny  which  was  trampling  out  English  liberty 
in  the  colonies,  and  the  corruption  which  was  undermining  it 
at  home. 


INDEX. 


[In  the  following  Index  the  abbreviations/ and  ff  mean  "following  pages,"  and  n  or  nn  that 
the  reference  is  to  the  foot-notes  as  well  as  to  the  pages  indicated.] 


Albkmarle,  Lord,  "Memoirs  of  Rock- 
ingham," 200??,  356/?;  portrait  of  Sir 
James  Lowther,  356  w. 

Almack,  75??,  366,  418/?,  419,  424,  426, 

imf. 

Almon,  John,  on  Charles  Fox,  324. 

American  colonies,  some  of  the  griev- 
ances of,  96/;  the  Stamp  Act,  117; 
breach  with  England,  132  ;  coercive 
measures  determined  on,  133;  Wed- 
derburn's  denunciation  of  the  wrongs 
of,  332. 

Anglo-Indians,  purchase  of  boroughs  by, 
in  1768,  125/ 

Apollonius  Rhodius,  Charles  Eox  on, 
26  In. 

Articles,  Anglican,  agitation  against 
subscription  to,  373^*. 

Artois,  Comte  d',  275. 

Askew,  Mr.,  delivers  the  Middlesex  pe- 
tition to  the  king,  185/?. 

Augusta,  Princess  -  dowager,  29,  104/, 
145,  257/?,  404. 

Aylesbury,  the  representation  of,  pur- 
chased by  Wilkes,  141 . 

Bacon,  Lord,  99,  lOOn. 

Bagot,  Sir  W.,  365,368. 

Barnard,  Dr.,  his  influence  on  Charles 
Eox,  43  f. 

Bane,  Colonel,  121,  219,  299,  308/, 
321,  327  ;  deprived  of  his  employ- 
ments by  the  king,  111;  letter  to 
Lord  Chatham,  112n;  on  legal  mem- 
bers of  the  Commons,  329 ;  his  de- 
nunciation of  the  Commons,  338, 
338/2  ;  attack  on  Sir  Fletcher  Norton, 
402  ;  on  Home's  letter  in  the  Public 
Advertiser,  447. 

Barrington,  Lord,  moves  the  expulsion 
of  Wilkes  from  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, 159. 


Bath  as  a  gambling  resort,  77n. 

Bathurst,  Lord,  letter  to  Lady  Suffolk, 
433/. 

Beckford,  Lord  Mayor,  169,  224  ;  his 
remonstrance  with  the  king,  241/, 
249  ;  Lord  Holland's  doubts  about  his 
prospects  in  a  future  life,  ib.  ;  his  de- 
nunciation of  Lord  Holland,  248/. 

Bedchamber.     See  Household. 

Bedford,  Duke  of,  signs  preliminaries  of 
peace  with  France,  24/;  his  followers, 
29,  79,  122,  128/,  131/,  134/,  194^, 
207/,  255, 391,  392/? ;  conference  with 
Lord  Rockingham,  122??,  123  ;  his  un- 
popularity, 187n;  Junius's  slanders  on, 
ib.  ;  hunted  from  WTest  of  England, 
188  ;  verses  on,  188??. ;  letter  to,  from 
Lord  Holland,  253/. 

Berri,  Due  de,  275. 

Betting  in  the  last  century,  414^.  See 
Brooks's ;  Gambling. 

Blackburne,  Archdeacon,  374n,  377. 

Blackstone,  Dr.,  speech  on  Wilkes,  160  ; 
on  the  Middlesex  election  petition, 
172  ;  his  own  "Commentaries"  cited 
against  him,  ib.,  173. 

Bloom  field,  Robert,  210. 

Bloomsbury  gang.  See  Bedford,  Duke  of. 

Bolingbroke,  Lord,  73/?,  80,417. 

Boswell,  J.,  152??,  332/? ;  his  work  on 
Corsica,  133/  134/?;  Lord  Lonsdale's 
persecution  of,  357/;  on  Charles  Fox 
at  the  Literary  Club,  437/ 

Bottetort,  Lord,  109. 

Brentford.     See  Middlesex  election. 

Bribery,  electoral  and  parliamentary, 
90/f,  93ff,  97/,  1 1 1/  1 24/,  212/21 6/*, 
2 1 9/,  331,  352.  See  Shoreham,  New ; 
Fox,  Henry. 

Bright,  Mr.  John,  on  truth  in  morals 
and  statesmanship,  115/?;  his  speech 
on  the  Irish  Church  Bill,  382. 


454 


INDEX. 


BRO 

Broad  Church  party,  agitation  against 
subscription,  374jf. 

Brodie,  Mr.  Peter,  286. 

Brooks's,  75,  75/?,  76,  76/? ;  play  at,  79n, 
418/?,  419;  the  betting-book,  414^", 
425.     See  Almack. 

Bubb  Dodington,  on  Henry  Fox,  7 ; 
on  the  fall  of  Pitt,  23/;  his  dispute 
with  Lord  Shelburne,  97/. 

Bunbury,  Sir  Charles,  on  Charles  Fox 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  lion. 

Burgoyne,  Colonel,  403. 

Burgoyne,  Mr.,  425. 

Burked  Edmund,  106,  110,  151,  161, 
,165n,  166/i,  171,  175,  194,  220,  279, 
307,  343,  345,  347,  366,  406/,  413, 
432/?,  433/?,  446/  452  ;  letter  to  Lord 
Rockingham,  70  ;  on  George  III., 
70/? ;  on  the  cause  of  the  discontent 
under  George  III.,  100??,  182 ;  on  the 
reign  of  George  II.,  102  ;  on  political 
parties,  107,  120;  on  the  true  princi- 
ple of  politics,  115  ;  on  Lord  Rock- 
ingham's acceptance  of  office,  1 16/; 
on  the  persecution  of  Wilkes,  142/?. ; 
speech  in  debate  on  expulsion  of 
Wilkes  from  House  of  Commons, 
160/i ;  on  Wilkes,  164/?;  speech  on 
Middlesex  election,  170;  on  Middle- 
sex election  petition,  173 ;  on  the 
constitutional  questions  involved  in 
the  persecution  of  Wilkes,  182/f ; 
leads  Whig  agitation,  184/*;  on  Lord 
Chatham's  return  to  public  life,  191  ; 
simile  on  Lord  Chatham,  196  ;  on  the 
break-up  of  personal  government,  21 6  ; 
on  the  unconstitutional  proceedings 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  225  ;  his 
"  Discontents  "  as  compared  with 
Johnson's  "False  Alarm," 228??,  229; 
on  political  quarrels,  243/? ;  reply  to 
Fox  on  the  law  of  libel,  294/f;  eject- 
ed from  the  House  of  Lords,  299??; 
on  the  "  Speaker's  eye,"  309  ;  his  ef- 
forts during  debates  on  the  press, 
309/T ;  reply  to  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  320/; 
on  the  trial  of  Lord  Mayor  Crosby, 
326  ;  and  of  Alderman  Oliver,  338  ; 
on  the  New  Shoreham  election,  35Qf; 
attempts  to  reconcile  Fox  and  Wed- 
derburn,  354  ;  on  Sir  G.  Savile,  364/? ; 
dislike  of  arbitrary  power,  ib.  •  dispute 
with  Charles  Fox,  368/;  on  Charles 
Fox,  369?? ;  letter  to  Fanny  Burney, 
372/;  to  Lady  Huntingdon,  373  ;  on 
clerical  subscription,  381??  ;  his  reply 
to  Sir  W.  Meredith,  384 ;  on  the  re- 


lief of  Dissenters,  388/;  on  the  Royal 
Marriage  Bill,  400/  402/;  opposition 
to  Fox's  motion  for  repeal  of  Lord 
Hardwicke's  Marriage  Act,  428;  com- 
pared with  Fox,  428/;  Dr.  Johnson  on, 
429 ;  on  parliamentary  oratory,  430  ; 
his  attacks  on  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  443??. 

Burke,  William,  300,  338,  343,  446. 

Burner,  Miss,  109,  372/ 

Burns*  R,  215??,  266,  41 2n. 

Bute,  Lord,  22ff,  29,  31??,  56/?,  94,  114, 
122/?,  129,  145,  167,  173,  257,  330, 
346,  359,  404. 

Byron, 'Lord,  74??;  his  "Hours  of  Idle- 
ness," 43/?;  his  behavior  to  Lord  Car- 
lisle, 54/?  ;  compliment  to  Wilkes, 
159/?. 

Calcraft,  Mr.,  31/  231/?. 

Cambridge  University,  contest  for  the 
high-stewardship  of,  71^*;  Junius  on 
the  high  steward  and  chancellor, 
73/ 

Camden,  Lord,  121, 135, 194. 197/  200/ 
205,  205??,  214,  218/?,  230,  296,332/?, 
333. 

Camden,  2d  Lord,  206. 

Campbell,  Lord,  his  "Lives  of  the  Chan- 
cellors" cited,  173??,  205,  330/?. 

Carlisle,  Lord,  tribute  to  Charles  Fox's 
schoolboy  eloquence,  43,  43/?  ;  lines 
on  Fox,  43n ;  his  attentions  to  Lady 
Sarah  Lennox,  52/;  his  "necessary 
banishment,"  53/;  Byron's  treatment 
of,  54/? ;  journey  across  the  Alps,  54/; 
with  Charles  Fox  in  Italy,  55/;  his 
life  at  Castle  Howard,  87  ;  reasons  for 
declining  the  Bedchamber,  108/? ;  his 
description  of  2d  Lord  Holland,  138??, 
139/? ;  on  Stephen  Fox,  170/? ;  letters 
to  Selwyn  on  Charles  Fox,  393??,  423/T; 
on  Fox's  gambling  losses,  423/;  gives 
security  for  Fox's  debts,  423  ;  on  Sel- 
wvn's  electoral  troubles,  431/;  other 
references,  79,  130,  273,  286,  420. 

Carlyle,  Mr.,  9??,  19,  141??. 

Carnarvon,  Lord.     See  Herbert,  Henry. 

Caroline,  Queen  of  Denmark,  399,  399/?. 

Carteret,  Lord,  on  Henry  Fox's  mar- 
riage, 9??.     See  Granville. 

Cavendish,  Lord  John,  115,  120??,  161, 
318,  354/?,  376,  433??. 

Cavendish,  Mr.  Henry  (author  of  the 
"Debates"),  170??,  175,  182??,  295??, 
351??,  367/?. 

Charlemont,  Lord,  300/?. 


INDEX. 


455 


CHA 

Charles  II.,  2ff,  9,  155,  253. 

Charlotte,  Queen,  48. 

Chatham,  Lord,  on  parliamentary  cor- 
ruption, 93;  letter  from  the  king, 
10i>/";  his  sympathy  with  the  army 
and  navy,  113«;  invited  to  form  a 
government,  119  ;  its  composition, 
120/T;  failure  of  his  administration, 
121/;  withdraws  from  the  cabinet, 
122  ;  on  bribery  at  the  general  elec- 
tion of  17G8,  125  ;  urgency  of  the 
king's  letters  to,  129ra;  permitted  to 
retire,  135  ;  remonstrates  with  George 
III.,  189/;  returns  to  public  life, 
I^oJT;  Wilkes  on,  190«;  his  domes- 
tic correspondence,  ib. ;  reconciliation 
with  the  Whigs,  191 ;  his  intended 
policy,  192;  excitement  at  his  return 
to  public  life,  193^;  Wilkes's  pam- 
phlet against,  195?*;  his  defence  of 
his  assailant,  197  ;  popularity  of  his 
orations  in  public  schools,  19Gn  ; 
speeches  in  House  of  Lords,  196/f ; 
influence  of,  213/*;  on  parliamentary 
bribery,  220/f ;  speech  denouncing  of- 
ficial peculation,  290jf;  reported  by 
Junius,  297 ;  insulted  in  House  of 
Lords,  299 ;  his  treatment  by  the 
Peers,  303  ;  on  Lord  Mayor  Crosby's 
trial  in  Commons,  327/i ;  on  Wedder- 
burn's  defection  from  the  Whigs,  333 ; 
on  Lord  North's  cabinet,  345/";  ad- 
vice to  his  nephew,  37G  ;  on  Charles 
Fox's  opposition  to  Lord  North,  419  ; 
minor  references  to,  181,  201/;  230, 
242,  255,  292,  338rc,  341,  38G,  399/2, 
452.      See  Pitt. 

Chelsea  Hospital,  foundation  of,  5. 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  G3,  77n,  125,  129, 
270,  876. 

Cholmondeley,  Lord,  82,  415. 

Christian  Club.     See  IShoreham,  New. 

Church  of  England,  clerical  objectors  to 
subscription  in,  373//*;  meeting  of  ob- 
jectors, and  petition  to  House  of  Com- 
mons, 375/*;  opposition  of  the  Evan- 
gelicals, 377  ;  action  of  the  Commons, 
SSOJf';  latitudinarian  Bishops,  384/; 
secession  of  Lindsey,  ib.  See  Lindsey ; 
Dissenters ;  Nonconformists. 

Churchill,  C,  lines  on  Pitt  the  elder, 
2in  ;  on  Henry  Fox,  88*,  34n ;  on 
Lord  Sandwich,  G9  ;  on  Sandwich  and 
Wharton,  148n ;  on  his  own  career 
as  a  clergyman,  235>2 ;  on  Wedder- 
burn,  334n;  his  admiration  for  Wilkes, 
148»;  his  death,  and  character  of  his 


COM 

works,  14  7j/;  also  referred  to,  333, 
374. 

Clarendon,  Great  Lord,  2n,  3,  2G0. 

Clermont,  Lord,  417. 

Clinton,  Ladv  Lucy,  65w. 

Clive,  Lord,"l84w,  218w,  297;  Charles 
Fox's  denunciations  of,  43G/  436h, 
437n  ;  his  great  political  influence  and 
his  death,  ib. 

Clubs,  London,  one  of  the  objects  for 
which  instituted,  414. 

Cobbett,W.,374,440. 

Coke,  Sir  Edward,  on  men  who  never 
prosper,  362??. 

Colebrooke,  Sir  George,  his  bill  for  in- 
creasing the  East  India  Company's 
army,  306. 

Commons,  House  of,  debates  on  Lord 
Hardwicke's  Marriage  Bill,  12/f;  Pitt 
the  elder's  ascendency  in,  20/;  how 
led  by  Henry  Fox,  27jf;  approves  the 
peace  with  France,  28 ;  proscription 
of  the  Whigs,  29/;  its  growing  hos- 
tility to  Henry  Fox,  30/*;  corrupted 
by  the  king,  llQ/f;  division  on  the 
American  question,  117;  election  of 
Speaker  in  1768,  127«;  the  Wilkes 
controversy,  139//*;  debates  on  Wilkes, 
L59/f;  on  the  Middlesex  election, 
168/?*;  scenes  in  and  outside  the 
House,  ib.;  conclusion  of  the  debate, 
171/;  Luttrell  declared  elected,  171, 
176;  on  the  petition  of  the  electors, 
171/T;  effect  of  Chatham's  speech- 
es, 199  ;  George  Grenville's  Bribery 
Bill,  217/7*,  353/T;  abuses  at  trial  of 
election  petitions,  21 7n,  2\Sn  ;  pro- 
ceedings on  the  remonstrance  of  the 
City  to  the  king,  224/f;  Burke's  and 
Wedderburn's  speeches,  225/f;  annul- 
ment of  resolution  against  Wilkes, 
242«;  conditions  of  success  in,  245/; 
discussions  on  the  liberty  of  the  press, 
291//*;  speeches  of  Fox  and  Burke, 
293/  295w ;  insulted  by  House  of 
Lords,  299 ;  indignation  of,  appeased 
by  Charles  Fox,  300/f;  continued  ill- 
feeling  towards  the  Lords,  302n  ;  pub- 
lic reports  of  speeches  in,  304/T;  ef- 
forts of  the  ministerialists  to  exclude 
the  press  from,  ib.  ;  proceedings 
against  the  newspapers,  305  ;  great 
debate  on  the  press,  307j^;  the  print- 
ers reprimanded  bv,  809/;  John  Whe- 
ble's  defiance  of,  811,  811n,  312n ; 
Wilkes's  practical  jokes  on,  312/*;  in- 
sulted at  the  Mansion  House,314/; 


456 


INDEX. 


the  Speaker's  narrative  to,  315;  cold- 
ly received  by  the  House,  316  ;  Wel- 
bore  Ellis  on  the  situation,  316/";  ex- 
cited debate  in,  317/T;  inflammatory 
speech  of  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  319/;  its 
effect,  ib. ;  Burke's  reply,  320  ;  Lord 
North's  despondency,  321/;  speech  of 
Charles  Eox,  322/;  defeat  of  the  Op- 
position, 324  ;  Lord  Mayor  Crosby 
before,  825#,  334#;  340$*;  high- 
handed proceedings  of,  326/;  legal 
and  county  members  of,  327/;  Wed- 
derburn,  330$';  canvass  of  gov- 
ernment against  the  lord  mayor, 
335m  ;  surrounded  by  the  mob,  336  ; 
its  members  maltreated,  ib. ;  speech 
of  Alderman  Townshend,  ib. ;  help- 
lessness of  government,  336/;  Al- 
derman Oliver  before,  337/7';  effect 
of  Charles  Fox's  speech,  338/;  re- 
newed rioting  in  Palace  Yard,  340/; 
action  of  the  Speaker,  342  ;  speech  of 
Lord  North,  343/;  the  king's  Mends 
in,  344  ;  motion  of  Welbore  Ellis,  and 
committal  of  Crosby,  ib. ;  evades  its 
own  order,  345 ;  action  against  Speak- 
er's messenger,  ib. ;  dissolution  of  Par- 
liament, 346 ;  admission  of  reporters 
to,  347 ;  effect  of  New  Shoreham 
election,  350/;  quarrel  of  Fox  and 
Wedderburn,  353/;  Sir  G.  Savile's 
and  Sir  W.  Meredith's  bills,  362$* ; 
speech  of  Charles  Fox,  366,  367, 
367m;  strange  incident  of  a  division  in, 
368  ;  proceedings  on  petition  against 
clerical  subscription,  370/  383m  ; 
speeches  of  Burke  and  Savile,  382/ 
and  of  Charles  Fox,  383/;  petition 
of  the  Unitarians,  386  ;  Nonconform- 
ists' disabilities,  385$";  petition  of 
Dissenters  against  Dissenters,  387/; 
the  Church  Nullum  Tempus  Bill, 
392$*;  proceedings  on  the  Royal  Mar- 
riage Bill,  401/f ;  power  of  Charles 
Fox  in,  408;  a  German  pastor  on, 
432.  See  London ;  Lords,  House 
of. 

"  Concealers,"  362m. 

Conway,  General,  70m,  111«,  120$;  123k, 
157,  209,  401,  403,  408. 

Cooke,  Mr.,  153,  162. 

Cornwallis,  Lord,  5. 

Cornwallis,  Marquis  of,  213. 

Corsica,  cession  of,  to  France,  133 ; 
struggle  for  independence,  133/;  sym- 
pathy for,  in  England,  ib. 

Courtenay,  Mr.,  41  In. 


Coventrv,  Lord,  87. 

Cowper,"  W.,  85,  9 In,  149,  181,  266, 
268/?,  385m. 

Crabbe,  G.,266. 

Crawford.  Mr.  (the  elder),  252m,  435. 

Crawford,  Mr.,  405,  417,  433. 

Crewe,  Mr.,  becomes  security  for  Charles 
Fox's  debts,  423. 

Crewe,  Mrs.,  Fox's  and  Fitzpatrick's 
verses  on,  284. 

Cromwell,  O.,  his  speech  to  Long  Par- 
liament applied  to  Lord  North's  gov- 
ernment, 221n. 

Crosby,  Lord  Mayor,  314m,  315/  325; 
his  popularity,  321/*;  his  progress 
to  House  of  Commons,  325/*;  trial 
of,  326/7*;  canvass  of  government 
against,  335m;  drawn  in  triumph  to 
the  Mansion  House,  336;  again  be- 
fore the  Commons,  340$*;  stratagem 
of,  341/;  living  in  state  in  the  Tower, 
345/;  his  liberation,  346. 

Cruden,  A.,  anecdote  of,  180m. 

Cumberland,  dispute  between  the  Duke 
of  Portland  and  Sir  James  Lowther 
for  possession  of  Inglewood  Forest, 
357$*. 

Cumberland,  Duke  of,  15,  18m,  83. 

Cumberland,  Henry,  Duke  of.  his  ir- 
regularities, 395,  395m  ;  marries  Mrs. 
llorton,  394. 

Cust,  Sir  John,  elected  Speaker,  127m. 

Custom-house,  English,  in  the  last  cen- 
tury, 272/ 

Dalrvmple  (Lord  Bute's  poet),  91m. 

Dartmouth,  Lord,  85,  216. 

Dashwood,  Sir  Francis,  26m,  71m,  141. 

Deffand,  Mine,  du,  271 ;  her  acquaint- 
ance with  Walpole  and  Fox,  280^*. 

De  Grey,  Attorney-general,  292. 

De  Grev,  Thomas,  303m  ;  his  dispute 
with  Mr.  Tooke,  442$;  448/ 

D'Fxm,  Chevalier,  his  admiration  for 
Wilkes,  179m. 

Derby,  Lord,  415. 

Devonshire,  Duchess  of,  her  devotion  to 
Charles  Fox,  410,411m. 

Devonshire,  Duke  of,  28, 41 . 

Devonshire,  Duke  of  ( the  friend  of 
Charles  Fox),  411,415/*. 

Diderot  on  Wilkes,  234.' 

Dingley,  candidate  for  Middlesex,  163m. 

Dissenters,  the  king's  instructions  to 
Lord  North  regarding,  114;  griev- 
ances of,  385.  See  Nonconform- 
ists. 


INDEX. 


457 


Divorce  in  England  in  the  last  centurv, 

73n,  412. 
Dodd,  Dr.,  415. 

Dodington.     See  Bubb  Dodington. 
Domitian.     See   Junius ;    Francis,   Sir 

Philip. 
Dowdeswell,  123h,  307,  326,  345,  399«, 

444«,  445. 
Draper,  Sir  William,  his  defence  of  Lord 

Gran  by,  97;  challenges  Junius,  S72n. 
Dryden,  J.,  143n;  verses  of,  267n. 
Dunning,  Solicitor  -  general,  201,  213, 

292,  299*,  307,  3G6. 
Dyson,  Jeremiah,  109,  118n,  215,  307. 

East  India  Company,  bill  for  increas- 
ing army  of,  30G. 

Eglinton,  Lord,  118n. 

Egremont,  Lord,  acquires  the  borough 
of  Midhnrst,  126n  ;  on  Charles  Fox's 
ill-luck  at  hazard,  418. 

Election  petitions,  curiosities  of  the  trial 
of,  in  last  century,  2\7n. 

Eliot,  George,  her  "Daniel  Deronda," 
58s. 

Elliot,  Sir  Gilbert,  letter  of  Hume  to, 
211?*;  on  the  jealousy  of  the  English 
and  Scotch,  ib.  ;  inflammatory  speech 
in  House  of  Commons,  319  ;  other- 
wise referred  to,  344. 

Ellis,  Welbore,  215,  274,  316,  344,  353. 

Emerson  on  success,  136,  136n. 

England  in  the  early  years  of  George 
III.,  declaration  of  war  with  France, 
18/*;  fears  of  invasion,  and  political 
crisis  in,  19/;  triumphs  under  Pitt, 
20/*;  the  peace  with  France,  24 ;  Bute 
and  Fox's  administration,  24/7*;  social 
and  moral  condition  of,  6ljf;  ethics 
of  the  higher  classes,  75  \  prevalence 
of  gambling*  77/;  drinking  and  con- 
viviality, 82j/;  religion  among  the 
middle  classes,  86/";  and  in  the  higher, 
ib. ;  country  houses,  ib.  ;  absence  of 
political  principle,  87/';  the  sweets  of 
office  under  George  III.  compared 
with  those  of  the  present  day,  89/ 
100  ;  recipients  of  State  pensions  and 
of  the  royal  bounty,  9 In,  92n,  98/; 
parliamentary  corruption,  93/7*,  124/7'; 
her  liberties  in  danger  of  being  bribed 
away,  95a ;  scramble  for  political 
prizes,  97  ;  places,  not  measures,  98  ; 
rapid  succession  of  administrations, 
99  ;  general  distrust  of  public  men, 
99/";  Burke  on  the  situation,  100a; 
her  condition  under  George  II.,  102« ; 


FOX 

the  Rockingham  administration,  11  8/; 
the  general  election  of  1768,  124 ;  her 
attitude  on  the  Corsican  struggle,  133/*; 
indignant  at  Wilkes's  treatment,  15</; 
deadlock  of  the  Lords  and  Commons, 
158/*;  agitation  against  the  Duke  of 
Grafton's  government,  186/*;  petitions 
to  the  king,  185n,  186/;  joy  at  Lord 
Chatham's  return  to  public  life,  193/7*; 
fall  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  210/*; 
Lord  North's  administration,  212/7*; 
threatened  revolution  in,  230,  233/"; 
importation  of  foreign  manners  into, 
271 ;  sympathy  for  the  French  emi- 
gres, 277/7*;  English  tourists  on  the 
Continent,  280 ;  the  struggle  for  the 
liberty  of  the  press,  306/7*;  agitation 
in  the  Church  of,  375/  (see  Church 
of  England)  ;  effects  of  French  Revo- 
lution in,  388 ;  the  country  and  court 
parties,  390.  See  Commons,  House 
of;  Chatham,  Lord,  etc. 

Eton,  moral  change  in,  42n ;  want  of 
discipline  at,  42«,  43«  ;  Dr.  Barnard's 
rule  of,  44/7*;  schoolboy  effusions,  ib. 

Euripides,  Charles  Fox's  admiration  for, 
262/  408,  409«. 

Evelyn,  John,  on  Sir  Stephen  Fox,  4/ 

Fitzmaurice,  Lord  Edmund,  his  Life 
of  Lord  Shelburne,  26/j. 

Fitzpatrick,  Lady  Mary  (married  Ste- 
phen Fox),  248n,  253,  283/  285. 

Fitzpatrick,  Richard,  56,  76n,  281,  41  In, 
415,  434n;  his  friendship  with  Charles 
Fox,  283/7*,  289  ;  his  taste  for  verse- 
making,  284  ;  part  author  of  the  "  Rol- 
liad,"  285;  his  devotion  to  the  stage, 
285/;  his  verses  on  Lord  Mulgrave, 
291w ;  joins  Charles  Fox  in  the  defence 
of  New  Shoreham,  352/ 

Fitzrov,  Mrs.,  78. 

FitzwHliam,  Earl,  49,  286,  400. 

Fleet  marriages,  12/*;  Lord  Hardwicke's 
Bill,  12/*,  413,428. 

Foley,  Lord,  422. 

Fontainebleau,  preliminaries  of  peace  be- 
tween France  and  England  signed  at, 
24 ;  unpopularity  of  the  treaty  in  Eng- 
land, 25. 

Foote,  S.,  152n;  his  "Nabob,"  126», 
418n  ;  his  dramatic  performances, 
172«  ;  his  "Cozeners,"  3f>2n. 

"Foundling  for  Wit,"  33w,  251  n. 

Fox,  Sir  Stephen,  founder  of  the  Hol- 
land family,  1/;  assists  the  escape  of 
FrinCQ  Charles,  2  ;   Memoirs  of,  In ; 


458 


INDEX. 


FOX 

enters  the  service  of  the  prince,  3 ; 
rise  of  his  fortunes,  4 ;  his  fidelity  to 
the  Stuarts,  ib.  ;  embellishes  Sarum 
Cathedral,  3n  ;  his  services  under 
William  III.,  4;  promotes  the  foun- 
dation of  Chelsea  Hospital,  5 ;  his  do- 
mestic annals,  ib.  ;  his  death,  6. 

Fox,  Lady  (wife  of  Sir  Stephen),  6  ;  ad- 
vice to  her  children,  ib. 

Fox,  Stephen  (Earl  of  Ilchester),  7,  9/ 
See  Ilchester,  Lord. 

Fox,  Charles  (son  of  Sir  Stephen),  5n. 

Fox,  Henry  (son  of  Sir  Stephen),  3/,  (ff; 
his  loyalty  to  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  7 ; 
story  of  his  marriage,  8/;  his  domestic 
relations,  10/;  opposes  Lord  Hard- 
wicke's  Marriage  Bill,  13/;  his  apti- 
tude as  a  debater,  14,  17/';  his  inter- 
view with  George  III.,  16;  the  king's 
opinion  of  him,  ?'6. ;  joins  the  cabinet, 
16;  Lord  Granville's  advice  to,  19; 
becomes  paymaster  of  the  forces,  21 ; 
his  financial  gains,  22;  his  will,  22??; 
on  Charles  Townshend,  26n  ;  his  re- 
luctance to  enter  the  cabinet,  ib. ;  be- 
comes leader  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, 27  ;  how  he  secured  a  parlia- 
mentary majority,  27/f;  urged  to  acts 
of  spoliation  by  his  colleagues,  29  ; 
general  detestation  of,  30 ;  hostile  mo- 
tions in  the  House  of  Commons  against, 
ib.  ;  his  quarrel  with  Lord  Shelburne, 
31 ;  his  retirement  from  public  life, 
ib. ;  obtains  a  peerage  and  keeps  the 
Pay-office,  ib. ;  repartee  to  Lord  Bute, 
3 In.     See  Holland,  1st  Lord. 

Fox,  Lady  Caroline  (wife  of  Henrv  Fox), 
10,  37/,  46,  255/,  258.  See  Holland, 
Ladv. 

Fox,  Stephen  (2d  Lord  Holland),  38  ; 
Lord  Carlisle  on,  188*,  139,  I89n  j 
anecdotes  of,  170n  ;  high  play  of,  41 8/; 
his  bodily  appearance,  421?? ;  birth  of 
3d  Lord  Holland,  425 ;  Mr.  Craw- 
ford's letter  to,  433  ;  other  references, 
168,  175,  253,  285/392. 

Fox,  Charles  James  (son  of  Henry 
Fox),  Memorials  of,  by  Lords  Russell 
and  Holland,  In;  birth  of,  37;  his 
boyhood,  37ff;  idolized  by  his  father, 
38/;  his  fondness  for  the  stage,  39/; 
his  precocity,  39  ;  sent  to  school  to 
Wandsworth,  40;  goes  to  Eton,  ib.  ; 
his  school-days,  41/;  goes  on  the  Con- 
tinent with  his  father,  42 ;  Dr.  Bar- 
nard's influence  on,  43  ;  his  schoolboy 
effusions,  44??,  45w ;  picture  of,  by  Sir 


Joshua,  45,  46  n  ;  on  verse -making, 
46«  ;  goes  to  Oxford,  49  ;  his  life  and 
studies  there,  Wff;  his  love  for  Ox- 
ford, 50  ;  letters  of  Dr.  Newcome  to, 
50,  51?? ;  goes  to  Naples  with  his  fa- 
ther, 51  ;  his  companions  in  Italy, 
53/;  and  their  proceedings  there,  54/; 
his  studies  in  Italian  and  French  liter- 
ature, 5Cff;  his  talent  for  taking  pains, 
57ff;  makes  the  acquaintance  of  Vol- 
taire, 5dn  ;  returns  to  England,  59/; 
what  conditions  of  society  he  finds 
there,  61^*;  motion  for  the  removal 
of  Lord  Sandwich,  69» ;  his  entry 
upon  public  life,  73ff;  evil  influences 
surrounding,  74j/;  Dr.  Johnson  on, 
103/2 ;  chosen  M.P.  for  Midhurst,  126 ; 
outset  of  his  parliamentary  career, 
127  ;  his  political  animosities,  128/; 
advice  to  his  father,  129?? ;  early  indi- 
cation of  his  qualities.  130  ;  his  first 
appearance  in  Parliament,  130/;  at- 
taches himself  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton, 
135??,  136  ;  first  years  of  his  parlia- 
mentary career,  135/";  his  maiden 
speech,  138/;  sketch  of,  139,  428; 
canvasses  for  Colonel  Luttrell,  168  ;' 
speech  in  House  of  Commons,  169  ; 
his  opinion  of  Foote,  17'2n  ;  his  reply 
to  Wedderburn  and  Burke,  1 74/  1 75?? ; 
testimonies  to  his  ability,  1  75,  175?? ; 
on  Sir  G.  Savile's  censure  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  200  ;  pays  a  tribute  to 
Wilkes's  consistency,  243  ;  his  rapid 
success  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
246  ;  his  Parliamentary  vagaries,  247, 
264;  his  triumphs  over  Wedderburn, 
247?? ;  becomes  Junior  Lord  of  the  Ad- 
miralty, ib. ;  lampooned  in  the  "Found- 
ling for  Wit,"  251??;  his  father's  in- 
dulgence to,  252/  254  ;  his  studies  at 
King's  Gate,  260/;  love  for  the  clas- 
sics, ib. ;  letters  to  Selwyn  and  Gilbert 
Wakefield,  261?? ;  his  intended  missive 
to  Bonaparte,  ib. ;  his  admiration  for 
Euripides,  Homer,  and  Virgil,  262/; 
his  devotion  to  literature,  264/;  his  fa- 
vorite works,  2(54??,  265,  265??,  266  ;  at 
St.  Anne's  Hill  and  King's  Gate,  267 ; 
fondness  for  rustic  architecture,  2G8n ; 
his  prodigality,  26!/;  in  the  society 
of  great  French  ladies,  270/;  his  love 
for  France,  279  ;  his  acquaintance 
with  Mme.  du  Deffand,  280^;  at  the 
Clob  a  l'Anglaise,  280??  ;  Mme.  du 
Deft'an'd's  sketches  of,  28\ff;  letter  to 
Lord  Rockingham,  282/? ;  his  friend- 


INDEX. 


459 


FOX 

ship  with  Fitzpatrick,  283/  285/,  289 ; 
his  talent  as  a  verse-maker,  284ra,  285ra ; 
his  fondness  for  theatricals,  and  its  ef- 
fect on  his  oratory,  285^";  G rattan 
on,  288 ;  Selwyn's  bon-mot  on,  289/'; 
speech  on  the  law  of  libel,  293/,  296" ; 
Burke's  reply  to,  294/;  his  resem- 
blance to  his  father,  305ra ;  on  the  in- 
sult otfered  by  the  Peers  to  the  Com- 
mons, 300/ ';  on  the  press  inquisition, 
305  ;  otherwise  referred  to,  310/; 
on  Wei  bore  Ellis's  motion,  318ra ;  on 
the  conflict  of  the  Commons  with  the 
City,  322//;  causes  of  his  unpopularity, 
323/;  John  Almon  on,  324  ;  at  the 
trial  of  Lord  Mayor  Crosby,  326/; 
enunciates  a  new  legal  principle,  337  ; 
at  trial  of  Alderman  Oliver,  338t//; 
popular  detestation  of,  339/;  maltreat- 
ed by  the  mob,  341 ;  foolish  story  con- 
cerning, 34ln  ;  advocates  publicity  of 
debate,  347/,*  his  devotion  to  the  king's 
cause,  348/;  his  struggle  in  defence  of 
New  Shoreham,  351//';  opposition  to 
G.  Grenville's  Bribery  Bill,  352/;  his 
quarrel  with  Wedderburn,  353/;  speecli 
in  defence  of  Sir  J.  Lowther,  866//, 
367ra  ;  its  result,  368/;  his  admiration 
of  Burke,  ib.  ;  Junius's  attack  upon, 
370;  attempts  to  unmask  his  antago- 
nist, 371,  372ra  ;  seconds  Sir  W.  Mere- 
dith's protest  against  the  Criminal 
Code,  373  ;  on  religious  tests,  331 ,  376, 
382/7';  his  conduct  on  the  Dissenters' 
Relief  Bill,  388/;  later  feeling  of  the 
Nonconformists  towards,  389ra  ;  his 
evil  surroundings,  390/;  a  Quaker's 
letter  to,  391ra;  popular  reprobation 
of,  39 In,  392n ;  quarrels  with  Lord 
North,  392/7';  leaves  office,  393 ;  Lord 
Carlisle  on,  393ra  ;  his  attitude  on  the 
Koyal  Marriage  Bill,  404,  406/,-  rea- 
son for  leaving  office,  405/";  effect  of 
his  resignation  on  Koyal  Marriage 
Bill,  406/,  406ra  ;  his  victories  over  the 
lawyers,  407  ;  reasons  for  his  attack 
on  the  Marriage  Bill,  408  ;  his  domes- 
tic happiness,  408,  409ra ;  fondness  for 
country  life,  409ra,  410n;  vers  de  so- 
ciete  on,  410,  422 ;  his  chivalrous  re- 
spect for  women,  410,  412;  letters  to 
Duchess  of  Devonshire,  410,  410ra, 
41  Ira;  sketched  by  the  Duchess,  411; 
on  the  death  of  Pitt  the  younger,  4 1  In ; 
his  legislative  efforts  in  behalf  of  wom- 
en, 4 1 2  ;  his  bill  for  the  repeal  of  Lord 
Hardwicke's  Marriage  Act,  413,  428  ; 


eccentricities  of  his  private  life,  413; 
records  of  his  bets,  416//';  his  ill-luck 
at  hazard,  418;  verses  on  his  ill-luck 
at  play,  418  ;  his  fondness  for  sport, 
420//;  his  racing  adventures,  421; 
his  dealings  with  the  Jews,  422//; 
his  friends  go  securitv  for  his  debts, 
423 ;  his  father's  liberality  to,  425/; 
his  financial  catastrophe,  ib.  ;  turns 
his  attention  towards  the  bar,  425 ; 
compared  with  Burke,  428/;  his  elo- 
quence, 429  ;  on  his  own  and  Pitt's 
oratory,  ib.  ;  a  Prussian  clergyman 
on,  429/;  affection  of  the  Whigs  for, 
434ra ;  efforts  of  Lord  North  to  recover 
his  services,  434/;  fascinates  a  Tory 
schoolmaster,  434ra ;  offered  a  place  in 
the  Treasury,  435 ;  denunciations  of 
Lord  Clive,  43G/;  his  conduct  in  re- 
gard to  the  press,  437/;  at  the  Liter- 
ary Club,  438,  438ra  ;  on  John  Home, 
4f5/f;  his  opposition  to  Lord  North, 
449 ;  the  king  angry  with,  450/*;  Lord 
North's  letter  of  dismissal  to,  451  ; 
G.  Selwyn  on,  ib.  ;  close  of  the  first 
part  of  his  career,  451/*. 

Fox,  Mrs.  Charles,  264,  265ra,  267ra,  284ra, 
409ra. 

Fox,  Henry  Edward  (1st  Lord  Hol- 
land's youngest  son),  37ra,  53,  256. 

France,  declaration  of  war  with  England, 
1 8/;  fjrandes  dames  of  the  old  regime, 
270/;  English  visitors  to,  272//;  the 
passage  from  Calais  to  Dover,  272ra ; 
English  visitors  shopping  in,  273 ; 
courtesy  towards  British  tourists  in, 
274//;  "French  men  of  letters,  275j/; 
horror  inspired  by  the  Revolution  in 
England,  277//;  and  its  effects,  388. 
See  England  ;  Walpole,  Horace  ; 
Hume,  David,  etc. 

Francis,  Dr.,  tutor  of  Charles  Fox  at 
Eton,  41  n  ;  his  connection  with  the 
Hollands,  ib. 

Francis,  Sir  Philip  (Junius,  Mnemon, 
etc.),  obtains  a  government  clerkship, 
41;  after-dinner  abstemiousness  of, 
82 ;  reports  speeches  in  House  of 
Lords,  297  ;  Messrs.  Parkes  and  Mer- 
ivale's  Memoir  of,  372ra ;  George  111. 
on,  443.     See  Junius. 

Frankland,  Admiral,  on  parliamentary 
privilege,  306/. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  120«,  132  ;  on 
George  III.  and  Wilkes,  156ra;  on 
London  rioting,  168ra ;  cited,  374. 

Frederic  the  Great  on   Pitt,  19/;   al- 


460 


INDEX. 


leged  to  have  been  betrayed  by  Bute, 
25  ;   his  opinion  on  Corsica,  1 34. 
Frederic,  Prince  of  Wales,  103/';    fool- 
ish funeral  sermon  on,  I03n. 

Gambling,  aristocratic,  in  the  last 
century,  77/f ;  its  deplorable  conse- 
quences, 80/ ;  Charles  Fox's  losses, 
418,423/.     See  Brooks's. 

Garrick,  David,  admonished  by  Wilkes, 
180 ;  on  private  theatricals,  287«  ;  his 
foreign  tour,  ib.  ;  other  references  to, 
240,  399n. 

Genoa  cedes  Corsica  to  France,  133. 

George  IT.,  policy  of,  102;  his  death, 
102«  ;  Lord  Chatham's  estimate  of, 
118  ;  on  spurious  and  genuine  king's 
speeches,  176. 

George  III.,  Henry  Fox's  interview 
with,  1/)/;  commencement  of  his 
reign,  23/;  gives  a  place  in  the  cabi- 
net to  Henry  Fox,  26/';  countenances 
the  proscription  of  the  Whigs,  28/'; 
satisfaction  of  his  court,  30 ;  pro- 
poses to  Lady  Sarah  Lennox,  47 ;  the 
result,  48/;  marriage  of,  48 ;  letter 
of,  to  Lord  North,  64  ;  his  indulgence 
to  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  75 ;  his  the- 
ories of  government,  70;  results  of  his 
policy,  ib. ;  his  temperate  and  vigorous 
habits,  83,  Sin ;  household  of,  85/"; 
place-hunting  under,  89/;  profits  and 
position  of  croAvn  servants  compared 
With  those  of  the  present  day,  88j/, 
100/;  popular  notion  of,  103  ;  edu- 
cation of,  104/;  his  preceptors,  105; 
his  intellectual  and  business  qualities, 
106/;  letter  to  Chatham,  106;  polit- 
ical theories  of,  106j/,  113/;  changes 
of  his  advisers,  106/;  attempts  to 
form  a  party  of  his  own,  107 ;  char- 
acter and  duties  of  the  king's  friends, 
108//;  his  private  associates,  ib.  ;  how 
he  manipulated  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, 111  ;  letter  to  his  minister,  ib.] 
his  treatment  of  veterans  of  the  army, 
112/;  his  electioneering  operations, 
113f;  conduct  to  Chancellor  Legge, 
114  ;  invites  Lord  Rockingham  to  his 
councils,  116;  plots  his  fall,  117j/; 
his  pledges  to  Rockingham,  11S?i  ; 
popular  estimate  of  him,  119w;  dis- 
misses Lord  Rockingham  and  invites 
Chatham  to  form  a  government,  119; 
his  theory  of  party,  1 20 ;  end  of  his 
first  Parliament,  123;  elections  for 
the  new  one,  124/;  his  urgent  letters 


to  Chatham,  129rt;  the  quarrel  with 
America,  132;  his  resentment  against 
Wilkes,  143/;  misses  his  opportuni- 
ty in  reference  to  Wilkes,  155/f;  in- 
structions to  Lord  North,  157,  214w, 
385;  on  the  Wilkes  debate,  162  ;  his 
speech  proroguing  Parliament,  176; 
his  unpopularity,  177/;  his  coolness 
when  insulted  by  the  mob,  177, 178«  ; 
at  Drury  Lane,  I80n ;  receives  the 
Middlesex  petition,  185ra;  and  peti- 
tions from  the  counties  and  cities, 
186j/,  189;  action  of  his  ministers 
against  the  Whig  agitation,  187/f; 
Lord  Chatham's  remonstrance  with, 
1 89/;  persuades  Charles  Yorke  to  ac- 
cept the  great  seal,  206/;  his  reluc- 
tance to  invest  the  2d  Lord  Cam- 
den with  the  Garter,  206 ;  fall  of  the 
Duke  of  Grafton's  administration, 
210;  Lord  North  as  his  prime-min- 
ister, 212;  reign  of  bribery,  ib. ;  the 
great  seal  intrusted  to  commission- 
ers, 214  ;  apparent  success  of  his  the- 
ories, ib.;  Junius's  strictures  upon  his 
rule,  215/;  character  of  his  agents, 
216/;  expenditure  of  his  Civil  List, 
21J/;  petitions  to,  to  dissolve  Parlia- 
ment, 221/;  his  reception  of  the  City 
remonstrance,  222/;  joint  rebuke  of 
City  by  Lords  and  Commons,  226  ; 
the  Westminster  and  Middlesex  re- 
monstrances, 227/';  Junius's  letter  to, 
and  its  consequences,  229/;  deaf  to 
the  complaints  of  his  subjects,  231  ; 
indignant  with  his  ministers,  232» ; 
on  Lord  George  Sackville's  duel  with 
Governor  Johnston,  302n ;  insists  on 
fighting  out  the  quarrel  of  press  and 
Parliament,  307 ;  admonishes  Lord 
North  to  let  Wilkes  alone,  313;  per- 
emptory instructions  to  his  minister, 
315 ;  proposes  to  take  the  lord  may- 
or to  Westminster  by  water,  324/;  ob- 
stacles to  the  success  of  his  policy, 
355/,  action  of  his  government  in 
the  dispute  between  the  Duke  of 
Portland  and  Sir  James  Lowther, 
358/*;  on  the  Articles  of  Religion, 
379  ;  his  hostility  to  the  Nonconform- 
ists, 386,  389/;  his  brothers,  394/; 
his  anger  at  the  marriage  of  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland,  394/  397 ;  the  Royal 
Marriage  Bill,  397/*;  high- handed 
treatment  of  the  Commons,  402/;  on 
Sir  Philip  Francis,  443;  his  dislike 
for  Charles  Fox,  44!/ 


INDEX. 


461 


GER 

Germaine,  Lord  George.    See  Sackville. 

Gibbon,  on  Wilkes,  239/?;  on  the  recep- 
tion of  English  visitors  in  France, 
274;  his  predilection  for  French  so- 
ciety, 270/";  on  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, 277  ;  on  Charles  Fox,  405,  434  ; 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  432. 

Gladstone,  Mr.,  on  Wilkes,  140. 

Gloucester,  Bishop  of,  on  the  Royal 
Marriage  Bill,  400/?.  See  Warbur- 
ton. 

Gloucester,  Duke  of,  marriage  of,  to 
Lady  Waldegrave,  390/. 

Glynn,"  Sergeant,  Wilkes's  colleague  in 
the  representation  of  Middlesex,  102, 
104,  18.",,  242,  292/*. 

Goethe  on  the  English  character,  279, 
279n. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  104;  Charles  Fox  on 
the  "Traveller,"  2G0«;  his  "Haunch 
of  Venison,"  308/?. 

Gower,  Lord,  123,  209,  215  ;  motion  in 
House  of  Lords  against  reporters, 
298/. 

Grafton.  Duke  of,  29,  75,  91??,  93,  129, 
103/?,  105,  193/,  200jf,  207,  209, 
212,  303,  395/?;  his  relations  with 
Miss  Nancy  Parsons,  04??,  05  ;  his 
administration,  GGj/ ;  Horace  Wal- 
pole  on,  09 ;  becomes  Chancellor  of 
Cambridge  University,  72,  73?? ;  con- 
gratulated by  Junius,  72,  73  ;  Gray's 
ode  on,  73?? ;  a  dinner  given  by,  94/? ; 
as  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  1 21 ; 
seeks  alliance  with  the  Bedfords, 
122/;  becomes  prime-minister,  135; 
Charles  Fox's  estimate  of,  135?? ; 
Wilkes's  letter  to,  150;  agitation 
against  his  government,  184/T,  189; 
changes  in  his  administration,  200/f ; 
his  resignation  and  retirement,  209/; 
Junius's  diatribes  against,  ib. ;  break- 
ing-up  of  his  government,  ib.',  speech 
of,  reported  in  Woodfall's  journal, 
297  ;  letter  of  Junius  to,  333;  his  at- 
tack on  the  Duke  of  Portland,  350, 
358,  301. 

Grammont,  Count,  0,  427. 

Granby,  Lord,  97,  135,  157,  194,  200, 
213 ;  apology  for  his  part  in  the  Mid- 
dlesex election,  199. 

Grand  tour,  experiences  of  the,  55??. 
Grantham,  Lord,  272. 
Granville,  Lord,  his  compliment  to  Hen- 
ry Fox,  IGn;    refuses  to  accept  the 
Treasury,  19;    his   advice  to  Henrv 
Fox,  ib. 


Grattan,  Henry,  on  Charles  Fox  as  an  or- 
ator, 288 ;  on  Burke's  Toryism,  3G4n. 

Gray,  T.,  lines  on  Henry  Fox,  34,  34n ; 
ode  on  the  installation  of  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  as  Chancellor  of  Cambridge, 
73/?  ;  on  Boswell's  book  about  Corsi- 
ca, 134n. 

Green,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  389. 

Grenville,  George,  20,  42n,  91  n,  93, 
98,  110,  115,  117,  127,  109,  171/, 
184/?,  180,  191,213n,  270??,  420??;  on 
the  grand  tour,  55?? ;  antipathy  to 
king's  friends,  110;  on  motion  to 
expel  Wilkes  from  House  of  Com- 
mons, 159/;  on  Wilkes's  popularity, 
182;  his  Bribery  Bill,  217/f,  349, 
352/?,  353/;  proposal  for  inquiry  into 
the  Civil 'List,  219/;  quarrel  of  Fox 
and  Wedderburn  about,  353/;  speech 
of  Burke,  354. 

Grenville,  George  (the  younger),  55??. 

Grenville,  James,  214/?. 

Grenville,  Thomas,  42/?,  18Gn. 

Grenville  papers,  42w,  43n,  G5ra. 

Halifax,  Lord,  181,  214,  313. 

Hamilton,  Duchess  of,  153. 

Hamilton,  William  Gerard,  95n,  300». 

Harcourt,  Lieutenant-colonel,  403. 

Hardwicke,  Lord,  his  Marriage  Bill, 
llj/;  its  defects,  12/;  opposed  by 
Henrv  Fox,  13/;  his  philippic  against 
Fox,"l 5;  referred  to,  203 ;  Charles 
Fox's  bill  for  repeal  of  his  Marriage 
Act,  413,  427,  431. 

Hardwicke,  Lord  (son  of  the  preced- 
ing), contests  the  High  -  stewardship 
of  Cambridge  University  with  Lord 
Sandwich,  70/;  his  apologies  for 
Charles  Yorke,  203/? ;  joint  author  of 
the  "Athenian  Letters," ib.;  his  let- 
ters cited,  205/?;  entreats  his  broth- 
er to  resign  the  chancellorship,  207/; 
grief  for  his  brother's  loss,  208. 

Harley,  Lord  Mayor,  Lord  Holland's 
memorial  of,  255/?. 

Harris,  Mr.,  49/?. 

Hartington,  Lord,  218/?,  475n. 

Hawke,  Lord  Admiral,  157. 

Hay  ley,  W.,  Charles  Fox's  appreciation 
of,  205. 

Heine,  Heinrich,  215. 

Heinel,  Mile.,  415. 

Herbert,  George,  392. 

Herbert,  Henry,  317. 

Hertford  College,  Oxford,  Charles  Fox 
at,  49^t  51/?. 


462 


INDEX. 


Hertford,  Lord,  210,  272,  397/?,  432. 

Hertford,  Lady,  78. 

Hervey,  Augustus,  74/?. 

Hickey,  electioneering  agent,  125??. 

Hobart,  Mr.,  his  frolic  at  Lady  Tanker- 
ville's,  66/z. 

Holbach,  Baron  d',  147,  238,  274. 

Holland,  1st  Lord  (Henry  Fox),  de- 
fection of  his  associates,  31/;  public 
estimate  of  his  character,  32/7*; 
lampoons  and  satires  on,  33m,  34????  ; 
his  private  life,  35/;  quarrel  with -Rig- 
by,  36/;  his  domestic  happiness,  37  ; 
his  children,  37n;  Holland  House, 
37n  ;  love  for  his  family,  38/";  letters 
to  Lady  Holland,  ib. ;  his  dependents, 
41  n ;  on  his  son  Charles's  studies,  51 ; 
takes  him  to  Naples,  51/;  his  social 
qualities  and  literary  talents,  52  ;  his 
verses  on  Rigby,  52??  ;  his  poetical  re- 
monstrance to  Lady  Sarah  Lennox, 
52n ;  his  stay  at  Nice  with  his  chil- 
dren, 54 ;  letter  from  Voltaire  to,  59/i ; 
his  evil  influence  on  Charles  Fox, 
74/';  his  advice  to  Lord  Shelburne, 
97;  clubs  with  Lord  Ilchester  to  hire 
a  borough  for  their  sons,  \2Q>ff;  his 
isolation  in  English  politics,  127  ;  or- 
dered to  resign  the  Pay-office,  127, 
255 ;  his  advances  to  the  Whigs  re- 
jected, 128;  considers  himself  an  in- 
jured man,  ib.  ;  his  suit  for  an  earl- 
dom refused,  129/? ;  on  Corsica  and 
the  Corsicans,  134n  ;  his  support 
of  Colonel  Luttrell,  1G7;  delight  at 
Charles  Fox's  reply  to  Burke  and 
Wedderburn,  175;  remarks  on  Charles 
Yorke,  208« ;  on  Charles  Fox's  par- 
liamentary success,  247/";  his  reply  to 
the  allegations  of  Beckford,  249/;  his 
enormous  gains,  250  ;  his  communi- 
cation to  Baron  Smith,  250/?  ;  popu- 
lar hatred  and  denunciation  of,  251  ; 
character  and  disposition  of,  251/f : 
his  treatment  of  his  children,  252/?, 
253;  his  wealth,  ib.;  his  marine  re- 
treat at  King's  Gate,  254,  258^;  re- 
fused a  step  in  the  peerage,  256/f ;  re- 
signed to  his  lot,  258  ;  careless  of  his 
son's  prodigality,  269/;  on  Burke, 
368 ;  antipathy  of  his  family  to  the 
Royal  Marriage  Bill,  404 ;  his  dissat- 
isfaction with  Charles  Fox,  405 ;  de- 
lighted with  his  son's  triumphs  over 
the  lawyers,  407;  arranges  for  pay- 
ment of  Charles  Fox's  debts,  42.~> ; 
reason  for  desiring   his  son's   mar- 


riage, 42G ;  his  talent  as  a  debater, 
41'S  ;  his  satisfaction  at  seeing  Charles 
Fox  in  the  Treasury,  435/.  See  Fox, 
Henry. 

Holland,  Lady  Caroline,  270,  321.  See 
Fox,  Lady  Caroline. 

Holland,  2d  Lord.    See  Fox,  Stephen. 

Holland,  2d  Lady.  See  Fitzpatrick, 
Lady  Mary. 

Holland,  3d  Lord  (Henry  Richard  Fox, 
son  of  the  preceding),  Ira,  13,  269/2, 
405, 418  ;  on  Charles  Fox,  57, 409 ;  on 
Lope  de  Vega,  260n;  his  birth,  424. 

Holland  House,  37/?. 

Holland,  Earl  of,  37n. 

Holt,  Lord  Chief-justice,  186/?. 

Homer,  Charles  Fox's  love  for,  262/?, 
408. 

Home,  Rev.  John,  82??,  152^;  his  ac- 
tivity during  the  Middlesex  election, 
152,  152/? ;  his  account  of  the  king's 
reception  of  the  City  remonstrance, 
223/? ;  career  of,  439^;  his  quarrel 
with  Wilkes,  441  ;  his  letter  in  the 
Public  Advertiser,  444/";  ordered  to 
attend  at  the  House  of  Commons, 
44")/';  letter  to  the  House,  446;  his 
triumph  over  the  Commons,  447/;  his 
reputation  as  a  politician,  448«  ;  his 
"  Diversions  of  Furley,"  ib. 

Horton,  Mrs.,  394. 

Household  of  George  III.,  85/  108/?. 

Hume,  David,  147/,  270  ;  his  sympathy 
for  George  III.'s  policy,  2\()Jf;  his 
dislike  of  the  English  people,  211/; 
correction  of  his  history,  212  ;  proph- 
esies an  English  revolution,  232  ;  on 
cookery  and  history,  232?* ;  his  recep- 
tion in  France,  275/  276/? ;  on  the 
different  position  of  literary  men  in 
England  and  France,  276/;  Walpole 
on,  276??,  277/?. 

Hunt,  Dr.,  his  conversation  with  Fox 
on  clerical  subscription,  376. 

Huntingdon,  Countess  of,  her  crusade 
against  the  latitudinarians,  378j/. 

Huntingdon,  Lord,  and  Mr.  Lindsey, 
378,  378/?,  379/?. 

Hutchinson,  John  Hely,  300/z. 

Ilchester,  Lord,  415;  clubs  with  Lord 
Holland  to  purchase  a  borough,  V2GJf. 
See  Fox,  Stephen. 

Inglewood  Forest,  quarrel  of  Duke 
of  Portland  and  Sir  James  Lowther 
about,  358/f;  wholesale  actions  of 
ejectment  in,  363. 


INDEX. 


463 


Ireland  the  prey  of  English  place-hunt- 
ers, 95/ 

Italy,  English  tourists  in,  in  the  last  cen- 
tury, 55//. 

James  I.,  Quieting  Act  of,  362/. 

James  II.,  4,  5//. 

Jeffreys,  Judge,  226n. 

Jesse,  Mr.,  209//. 

Johnson,  Dr.,  75//,  91//,  134,  152//,  371, 
438/*;  on  Charles  Eox's  political 
power,  152//;  his  anecdote  of  Lord 
Shelburne,  132// ;  his  suggestion  of 
ducking  Wilkes,  145  ;  becomes  a 
political  writer,  228/";  on  Garrick, 
240n ;  his  meeting  with  Wilkes,  ib.  ; 
Charles  Eox's  criticisms  on  his  "  Lives 
of  the  Poets,"  2G3  ;  on  lawyers  can- 
vassing for  briefs,  332/* ;  on  the  Gren- 
ville  Bribery  Act,  352//;  on  Burke's 
oratory,  429  ;  with  Charles  Eox  at 
the  Literary  Club,  437/*. 

Johnston,  Governor,  his  duel  with  Lord 
George  Saekville,  302//. 

Junius,  on  the  Duke  of  Grafton  and 
Miss  Nancy  Parsons,  64// ;  on  Lord 
Weymouth,  GG ;  causes  of  his  popu- 
larity, G9 ;  on  the  High  Steward  and 
Chancellor  of  Cambridge!  University, 
72/*;  on  parliamentary  corruption, 
03;  on  George  III.  and  Wilkes, 
156?/;  cited,  163//;  his  earlier  and 
later  letters,  165a  ;  on  the  Middlesex 
election  riot,  1.66// ;  his  reverence  for 
Wilkes,  178 ;  his  libels  on  the  Duke 
of  Bedford,  187//,  188//;  his  diatribes 
on  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  209,  210; 
letter  of,  to  the  king,  229/,  290 ;  his 
strictures  on  Lord  Mansfield,  230;  his 
denunciations  of  Lord  North,  231,/f; 
his  foot-notes,  231 ;  letters  to  Wilkes, 
234/;  his  reports  of  speeches  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  297/;  on  the  tumult 
in  the  Lords,  299  ;  referred  to,  330//, 
331  ;  on  Wedderburn's  treachery, 
334;  on  the  maxim  "Nullum  tem- 
pus  occurrit  regi,"  360//,  361  n;  re- 
plies to,  of  ministerial  writers,  361/'; 
attacks  Charles  Fox,  370 ;  refuses 
to  disclose  himself,  371,  372//  ;  re- 
fuses to  fight  Sir  W.  Draper,  372// ; 
on  marriage  of  the  Duke  of  Cum- 
berland, 395// ;  letters  to  the  Duke 
of  Grafton  and  to  Wilkes,  ib. ;  pre- 
paring to  go  to  India,  442/;  his 
replv  to  Home,  442.  See  Francis,  Sir 
Philip.  I 


Kuan,  Edmund,  363. 

Kildare,  Lord,  54. 

King's  friends,  108/f,  344,  387.  See 
George  III.  ;  Commons,  House  of. 

King's  Gate,  Lord  Holland's  marine  re- 
treat, 254/*,  255//,  258/  268. 

Kingston,  Duchess  of,  her  revenge  on 
Foote,  172//. 

Kinnoul,  Lord,  250«. 

Kneller,  Sir  Godfrey,  his  picture  of  Lady 
Fox,  6. 

Lardner,  Dr.,  on  the  general  election 
of  1768,  373/ 

Lauderdale,  Lord,  410//,  434//. 

Lawson,  Sir  Wilfrid,  139. 

Lawyers,  unpopularity  of,  328/ 

Lee,  John,  counsel  for  the  Middlesex 
election  petitioners,  171;  on  Savile's 
speech  on  clerical  subscription,  382/ 

Legge,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
treatment  of  by  the  king,  114. 

Lennox,  Lady  Caroline,  Bff.  See  Fox, 
Lady ;  Holland,  Lady. 

Lennox,  Lady  Sarah,  41//,  175//,  404; 
her  extraordinary  beauty,  46/;  Hor- 
ace Walpole  on,  46 ;  proposed  to  by 
George  III.,  ib. ;  Sir  Joshua's  picture 
of,  46//;  accident  to,  47/;  the  king's 
anxiety  about,  47;  reappearance  at 
court,  and  end  to  her  hopes,  ib.  ;  her 
own  letter  on  the  subject,  48//;  her 
children,  48/;  Lord  Carlisle's  atten- 
tions to,  52  ;  Lord  Holland's  remon- 
strance with,  53//. 

Libel,  law  of,  289#.     See  Press. 

Liberal  party,  first  formation  of,  115, 1 16. 

Lincoln,  Lord,  9,  10. 

Lindsey,  Rev.  T.,  his  scruples  about 
subscription  to  the  Church  of  England 
Articles,  375 ;  his  canvass  among  the 
clergy,  375/;  his  success  with  the 
Whigs,  376 ;  opposed  by  the  Evan- 
gelicals, 377 ;  his  discussion  with 
Lord  Huntingdon,  377,  377/z,  378n ; 
petitions  the  House  of  Commons,  378/; 
secedes  from  the  Establishment,  38{f; 
Cowper's  lines  on,  385//;  also  referred 
to,  392//. 

Llovd,  Robert,  his  verses  on  Wilkes, 
180//. 

London,  in  the  last  century,  dissatisfac- 
tion of,  with  the  government  of  Bute 
and  Henry  Fox,  29 ;  riotous  scenes 
during  the  Middlesex  election,  152^*; 
enthusiasm  for  Wilkes,  156, 162  ;  col- 
lision  with   the   troops,   155 ;    elects 


464 


INDEX. 


Wilkes  alderman,  162 ;  prepares  for 
a  conflict  with  Parliament,  ib. ;  in- 
efficiency of  the  constables,  166,  168«; 
frequency  of  rioting,  168n,  177,  \78n; 
excitement  caused  by  the  Middlesex 
election,  168/T;  deputation  of  citizens 
to  the  king,  177/;  ballads  of  the  day, 
178«;  remonstrance  against  the  gov- 
ernment, 188,  221/*;  reception  of  the 
remonstrance,  222/T;  counter -pro- 
ceedings in  the  Commons,  224/,  315/7'; 
the  corporation  rebuked  by  Parlia- 
ment, 227  ;  elects  Wilkes  sheriff  and 
lord  mayor,  237 ;  makes  him  cham- 
berlain, 238 ;  conflict  with  House  of 
Commons,  296/",  314/";  action  of  the 
City  in  defence  of  the  press,  310/f; 
scheme  of  the  king  against  the  lord 
mayor,  325/;  ovation  to  the  latter  in 
his  progress  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
326/;  his  trial,  326/";  demonstration 
of  the  populace  against  the  Commons, 
334/";  riot  in  Palace  Yard,  336/; 
cortege  of  the  citizens  conducting 
Crosby  to  Westminster,  340 ;  renewed 
rioting,  ib.  ;  appeased  by  the  Whigs, 
342;  enthusiastic  reception  of  Crosby 
and  Oliver  on  their  liberation,  316. 
See  Commons,  House  of;  Wilkes; 
Crosby,  etc. 

Lonsdale,  Lord.  See  Lowther,  Sir 
James. 

Lope  de  Vega,  266n. 

Lords,  House  of,  the  debates  of  1770, 
196/*;  speeches  of  Chatham  on  bri- 
bery and  the  Civil  List,  220 ;  on  of- 
ficial peculation,  296/';  speech  of  the 
Duke  of  Grafton,  297;  reports  of  Ju- 
nius, 297/;  tumult  in,  299/;  forcible 
ejection  of  members  of  the  Commons, 
300  ;  rejects  bill  for  relief  of  the  Non- 
conformists, 387,  389 ;  the  Royal 
Marriage  Bill  in,  397/". 

Loughborough,  Lord.  See  Wedder- 
burn,  A. 

Lowther,  Sir  James,  at  Newmarket,  79  ; 
instigates  the  quarrel  between  Lord 
George  Sackville  and  Governor  John- 
ston, 301 ;  character  of,  357 ;  Lord 
Albemarle's  portrait  of,  356n ;  his 
treatment  of  Boswell,  357/*;  of  the 
Wordsworths,  357»  ;  lines  in  the 
"Rolliad"  on,  358?? ;  claims  the  es- 
tate of  Inglewood  Forest  as  against 
the  Duke  of  Portland,  358/;  his  claim 
countenanced  by  government,  360 ; 
unseated  for  Cumberland,  362  ;  whole- 


sale litigation  by,  363 ;  explanations 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  364  ;  Sir 
W.  Bagot's  defence  of,  366;  defeat 
of  his  claims,  370.  See  Portland, 
Duke  of. 

Lumm,  Mrs.,  78. 

Luttrell,  Colonel  Henry,  government 
candidate  for  Middlesex,  167n,  168/'; 
declared  the  elected  member,  170, 
176;  otherwise  referred  to,  174,  242/, 
320,  347,  394. 

Lyttelton,  2d  Lord,  55n,  81,  422. 

Macartney,  Sir  George  (afterwards 
Lord),  41??,  128,  266n. 

Macaulay,  Catherine,  contemporary 
opinion  of  her  as  an  historian,  120/?. 

Macaulay,  Lord,  5n,  84n,  110,  120/?, 
259n,  261  n;  on  Voltaire's  ignorance 
of  England,  85  ;  on  Charles  Pox's  ad- 
miration for  Apollonius  Rhodius, 
261/?;  on  his  favorite  passage  in  the 
"  Alcestis,"  409/?,. 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  on  the  Royal 
Marriage  Bill,  399/?. 

Malmesbury,  1st  Lord,  49/z. 

Manchester,  Duke  of,  298. 

Mann,  Horace,  Walpole's  letters  to,  64??, 
68»,  74, 102n,  231,  427. 

Mansfield,  Lord,  75,  98,  134,  142,  146, 
154,  155,  165/?,  198,  201,  240,  299, 
39 In,  398;  his  charge  at  the  Wood- 
fall  trial,  231 ;  dictum  on  the  law  of 
libel,  291  ;  his  draft  of  the  Royal  Mar- 
riage Bill,  400n,  406,  441.  See 
Murray. 

March,  Earl  of,  79,  143, 158,  273,  274, 
415/;  his  correspondence,  74  ;  letter 
to  Selwyn,  80??,  81??;  lord  of  the 
bedchamber,  108.     See  Queensberry. 

Martindale,  Mr.,  77n. 

Masham,  Lord,  79. 

Mason,  W.,  33;  lines  on  George  III., 
84» ;  on  Lord  Holland,  257?? ;  criti- 
cism on  Fox's  and  Fitzpatrick's  verses, 
284. 

Massey,  Mr.,  his  "History  of  England" 
referred  to,  401??. 

Massinger,  P. ,  362. 

Medmenham  Abbey,  72??,  141,  152. 

Melcombe,  Lord,  23;  his  dispute  with 
Lord  Shelburne,  97.  See  Bubb  Dod- 
ington. 

Meredith,  Sir  William,  speech  on  par- 
liamentary privilege,  316/;  on  the 
conflict  of  the  Commons  with  the 
City,  335 ;  rescues  Lord  North  from 


INDEX. 


465 


the  mob,  34 1 ,  343 ;  his  amendment  of 
Sir  G.  Savile's  Act,  SGiff;  effect  of 
Charles  Fox's  speech  against,  367 ff ; 
move  for  inquiry  into  the  Criminal 
Code,  373 ;  presents  petition  of  the 
Broad  Church  party,  379/;  on  relig- 
ious tests,  383  ;  complaint  against  Sir 
F.  Norton,  444w. 

Merivale,  Mr.  Herman,  372k. 

Methodists,  the.  See  Wesley,  John ; 
Huntingdon,  Countess  of. 

Middlesex  election,  strategy  of  Wilkes's 
supporters,  152/?';  riots,  153/T,  165/*; 
enthusiasm  in  London,  1G3;  govern- 
ment candidates,  164??.,  1G7  ;  inefficien- 
cy of  the  constables,  166 ;  candida- 
ture of  Colonel  Luttrell,  lGCff;  pe- 
titions of  the  electors,  171/j  185??; 
hearing  of  petition  in  the  Commons, 
171/f;  Luttrell's  election  confirmed, 
17G ;  ballads  on,  177»,  178«;  ad- 
dresses of  the  electors  to  the  king, 
178??,  227  ;  re-election  of  Wilkes, 
242?? ;  political  results  of,  244.  See 
Wilkes  ;  London  ;  Commons,  House 
of. 

Midhurst  borough  and  its  voters,  12G, 
150. 

Miller,  Mr.  (of  the  Evening  Post), 
arrest  of,  313;  proceedings  at  the 
Mansion  House,  314. 

Milton,  Lord,  354??. 

Mnemon  (another  name  of  Junius),  360??, 
3Gln,  372??.     See  Junius ;  Francis. 

Montagu,  Viscount,  proprietor  of  the 
borough  of  Midhurst,  126,  150. 

Montague,  Minister  of  William  the 
Third,  4. 

More,  Hannah,  385;?. 

Morley,  Mr.  John,  on  Wilkism,  151n. 

Mountford,  Lord,  416. 

Mulgrave,  Lord,  Fitzpatrick's  verses  on, 
29  In. 

Mulgrave,  Lady,  mobbed  by  Eton  bovs, 
42a. 

Murray,  Attorney-general,  16/,  19,  21, 
93.     See  Mansfield,  Lord. 

Nabobs.     See  Anglo-Indians. 

Nangis,  Comte  de,  53n. 

Napier,  Lady  Sarah,  G,  48.  See  Len- 
nox, Lady  Sarah. 

Napier,Sir  William,and  hisbrothers,48n. 

Napoleon  I.,  57,  133,  175,  261  n. 

Napoleon  II L,  216??,  278. 

Newcastle,  Duke  of,  9,  16,  19/,  21,  24, 
29,  107,  218??. 

30 


Newcome,  Dr.,  Master  of  Hertford  Col- 
lege, 49  ;  his  letters  to  Charles  Fox, 
50,  5 In. 

New  Shoreham.     See  Shoreham. 

Nice,  53??. 

Nonconformists,  grievances  of,  385/; 
Bill  for  their  relief,  387 ;  the  king's 
hostility  to,  387/,  390 ;  Relief  Bill  re- 
jected by  House  of  Lords,  387 ;  peti- 
tion against  abolition  of  tests,  388 ; 
Lady  Huntingdon's  remonstrance,  ib.; 
popularity  of  Charles  Fox  among,  389/?. 

North,  Lord  Chief-justice,  226??. 

North,  Lord,  98, 110,  171,  189, 199,  214, 
223,  256,  296,  307/;  313,  334,  370, 
378/  405,  413,  416,  434/;  443,  445/ 
449/? ;  becomes  Chancellor  of  Ex- 
chequer, 122;  instructions  from  the 
king  in  reference  to  Wilkes,  157/; 
consternation  of  his  cabinet,  158 ;  an- 
swer to  Burke's  speech  in  the  Wilkes 
debate,  160?*,  161 ;  as  prime-minister, 
212/;  wholesale  purchase  of  parlia- 
mentary support  by,  213 ;  Lord  Hol- 
land on,  212/? ;  further  instructions 
from  the  king  to,  214n,  387 ;  destina- 
tion of  the  seals,  214  ;  parries  an  awk- 
ward question,  220 ;  on  the  City  re- 
monstrance, 224/;  discontent  caused 
by  his  government,  228  ;  his  dread  of 
Wilkes,  230  ;  Junius  on,  23 Iff;  in- 
cites opposition  to  Wilkes,  237?? ;  his 
squabble  with  the  City,  315 ;  orders 
of  the  king  to,  315,  403  ;  difficult  po- 
sition of,  318/  321/  343/;  resolves 
to  push  the  quarrel  with  the  City, 
321/;  advised  by  the  king  how  to 
deal  with  the  lord  mayor,  325;  buys 
the  support  of  Wedderburn,  332 ;  mal- 
treated by  the  mob,  340/;  pathetic 
speech  of,  in  the  Commons,  341/; 
his  civility  to  the  Dissenters,  386/ 
38 In ;  opposes  the  Church  Nullum 
Tempus  Bill,  392jf;  on  the  Royal 
Marriage  Bill,  401/;  his  alarm  at  the 
desertion  of  Charles  Fox,  405 ;  op- 
poses repeal  of  Lord  Hardwicke's 
Marriage  Act,  428 ;  efforts  to  recover 
Charles  Fox's  support,  435/;  on  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Home,  445 ;  Charles  Fox's 
opposition  to,  449 ;  his  letter  dismiss- 
ing Fox,  450. 

North  Briton,  No.  45,  143. 

Northington,  Lord  Chancellor,  82/  92, 
121,416;  his  pensions,  93 ;  his  treach- 
ery to  Lord  Rockingham  and  advice 
to  the  king,  118/;  in  retirement,  123. 


466 


INDEX. 


NOR 

Northington,  2d  Lord,  416,  425. 

Norton,  Sir  Fletcher  (Speaker),  246  ; 
John  Wheble's  letter  to,  311?/,  312/2 ; 
requests  the  sheriffs  to  quell  the  riot 
in  Palace  Yard,  342 ;  hanged  in  effigy, 
346rc ;  Burke's  sarcasm  on,  402 ;  as- 
sailed by  Barre,  ib. ;  Fox's  attack  on, 
407;  accusations  against,  444/z. 

Norwich,  Bishop  of,  preceptor  of  George 
III.,  105. 

Oliver,  Alderman,  314/*,  326  ;  his 
defiance  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
337;  trial  of,  337/f;  committal  of, 
340,  344 ;  in  prison,  34;"/;  liberation 
of,  346. 

Onslow,  Colonel  George,  306,  313,  321; 
hanged  in  effigy,  346 n. 

Onslow,  Mr.  George,  169,  300;  on  the 
revival  of  resolutions  against  the  press, 
304/;  treats  with  the  Presbyterians, 
387n. 

Orford,  Lord,  Henry  Fox's  attempt  to 
bribe,  27/. 

Ossory,  Lord,  2iSn,  253,  273,  283,  376, 
416,  434  ;  Charles  Fox's  letter  to, 
404/ 

Ossory,  Lady,  Walpole's  letter  to,  273. 

Oxford,  price  of  the  borough  of,  in  1768, 
125. 

Oxford,  Bishop  of,  on  the  Koyal  Mar- 
riage Bill,  400«. 

Pa  let,  Dr.,  375. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  415. 

Pampellone,  Charles  Fox's  tutor,  40. 

Paoli,  General,  133,  134». 

Paris,  English  visitors  in,  272j^";  men 
of  letters  of,  275jf.     See  France. 

Parkes,  Mr.  J. ,  his  memoir  of  Sir  Philip 
Francis,  372w. 

Parliament  in  the  last  century,  corrup- 
tion of,  93/f-  See  Commons,  House 
of;  Lords,  House  of;  Bribery. 

Parr,  Dr.,  375. 

Pay-office,  accounts  of,  30,  249,  250//. 
See  Fox,  Henry.     Holland,  1st  Lord. 

Pavne,  Kalph,  169. 

Pelham,  Henry,  Iff,  16?/,  316. 

Pelham,  Miss,  9. 

Percy,  Lord,  1  n,  3. 

Perreaus,  the,  415/ 

Phipps,  Captain,  291,  444?/.  See  Mul- 
grave,  Lord. 

Pitt,  W.  (the  elder),  16/  19,  115,  117; 
political  triumphs  of,  20  ;  Horace 
Walpole  on,  20/;  his  ascendency  in 


Parliament,  21  ;  fall  of,  23;  increase 
of  his  popularity  in  London,  30/;  as 
paymaster,  250?/  ;  fame  of  his  oratory 
in  France,  274.    See  Chatham,  Lord. 

Pitt,  Thomas,  Lord  Chatham's  advice 
to,  376  ;  brilliant  act  of  self-sacrifice, 
ib. 

Pitt,  W.  (the  younger),  123?/,  409n, 
AUn. 

Pope,  A.,  148«;  the  "Dunciad"  on  the 
grand  tour,  55. 

Porson,  Prof,  on  Pitt  and  Charles  Fox, 
429. 

Portchester,  Lord.   See  Herbert,  Henry. 

Porteus,  Bishop  of  London,  385/2. 

Portland,  Duke  of,  115, 120,  308//,  356  j 
his  estate  of  Inglewood  Forest  claimed 
by  Sir  James  Lowther,  359 ;  sensa- 
tion created  by  the  attempted  spolia- 
tion of,  360 ;  Sir  G.  Savile's  Act  in 
reference  to,  362/;  Sir  W.  Meredith's 
amending  bill,  364/;  chivalrous  care 
for  his  dependents,  36"/;  Fox's 
speech  against,  S6Cff,  36 In ;  result 
of  the  quarrel,  370/! 

Poulett,  Lord,  354//. 

Pratt,  Attorney-general,  204. 

Pratt,  Judge  of  Common  Pleas,  146. 

Premier's  levees,  93. 

Presbyterians  in  1768,  374.  See  Non- 
conformists. 

Press,  discussions  on  the,  in  House  of 
Commons,  29Ijf,  304^,  307/f,  437; 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  298/;  pro- 
ceedings of  the  deputy  -  sergeant 
against  the,  305 ;  reprimand  of  the 
printers,  309/;  action  of  the  City  in 
behalf  of  the,  310;  triumph  of  the, 
347. 

Price,  U.,  53;  as  an  actor,  286. 

Priestley,  Dr.,  270,  374/;  375//,  378, 
386. 

Proctor,  Sir  W.,  in  the  hands  of  the 
mob,  153;  his  Irish  bullies  at  the 
Middlesex  election,  164$". 

Provence,  Comte  de,  275. 

Pulteney,  W.  (Earl  of  Bath),  his  lamen- 
tation over  his  gambling  losses,  11  n. 

Purling,  Mr.,  candidate  for  New  Shore- 
ham,  349. 

Qceensberry,  Duke  of,  75n,  278,  415. 

See  March,  Earl  of. 
Quieting  Acts,  the,  361/ 

Radicals  under  George  III.,  440. 
Reynolds,  Sir  J.,  his  picture  of  Charles 


INDEX. 


467 


ItIC 

Fox,  46 ;  of  Lady  Sarah  Lennox, 
46rc ;  of  Lady  Waldegrave,  390 ;  his 
candidature  for  Plympton,  431 ;  Sel- 
wyn's  bon-mot  on,  431n. 

Richmond,  Duke  of  ( grandfather  of 
Charles  Fox),  8tf,  75. 

Richmond,  Duke  of,  115,  120«,  19G, 
298/  400,  432n. 

Richmond,  Duchess  of,  8/. 

Rigby,  Paymaster  and  Irish  Secretary, 
30,  78/;*123n,  132, 160,  163,  169,  181, 
196,  215,  246,  272,  306,  39 In  ;  urges 
Henry  Fox  to  proscribe  the  Whigs, 
30 ;  his  advice  to  the  city  of  London, 
ib.  ;  his  defection  from  Lord  Holland, 
32n,  36/;  at  Holland  House,  35ra ;  as 
Irish  Secretary  and  paymaster  of  the 
forces,  05/;  Garrick's  insinuation 
against,  66 ;  his  Irish  sinecures,  95 ; 
on  the  presentation  of  the  Middlesex 
petition  to  the  king,  185n;  his  cam- 
paign against  the  Whigs,  187;  his 
letter  to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  218?? ; 
reason  for  his  opposition  to  the  Gren- 
ville  Bribery  Act,  352/? ;  his  appear- 
ance in  the  House  of  Commons,  500. 

Roberts,  Hugh,  returning  officer  for  New 
Shoreham,  349,  350n. 

Robertson,  Dr.,  his  "Life  of  Charles  V.," 
197??,  260. 

Robinson,  Sir  Thomas,  16. 

Rockingham,  Lord,  29,  98,  115^, 
121/;  129,  181,  183,  203n,  345,  433/?, 
434  ;  administration  of,  98 ;  remon- 
strates with  George  III.,  110,  118n; 
invited  by  the  king  to  assume  the  gov- 
ernment, 116/;  effects  of  his  admin- 
istration, 117;  end  of  his  government, 
119 ;  retirement  of  his  adherents, 
120n,  121  ;  his  conference  with  the 
Duke  of  Bedford's  followers,  122n, 
123  ;  his  reconciliation  with  Chat- 
ham, 192;  Lord  Hardwicke's  letter 
to,  208n ;  letter  of  Charles  Fox  to, 
282n. 

Rogers,  Samuel,  212n,  364/?. 

Royal  Marriage  Bill  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  397//;  epigram  on,  399??;  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  401/f;  pro- 
test against,  ib.  ;  secrecy  of  the  dis- 
cussions of,  404 ;  final  vote  on,  ib.  ; 
effect  of  Charles  Fox's  resignation  on, 
405,  400n. 

Rudd,  Mrs.,  415,  417*. 

Rumbold,  Mr.,  candidate  for  New  Shore- 
ham,  349/. 

Ruskin,  Mr.,  his  advice   to  an   Italian 


artist,  58/? ;  his  criticisms  on  Homer, 
262/?. 
Russell,  Lord,  his  continuation   of  the 
"  Memorials  of  Charles  Fox,"  In  ;  his 
"Life  of  Charles  Fox,"  42/?. 

Sackville,  Lord  George,  his  duel  with 
Governor  Johnston,  301,  302n. 

Sandwich,  Lord,  as  an  administrator, 
68/ ;  scandals  of  his  public  and 
private  life,  68/?;  contests  the  High- 
stewardship  of  Cambridge  Universi- 
ty with  Lord  Hardwicke,  71^/T;  made 
postmaster  -  general,  123;  lines  of 
Churchill  on,  148n ;  his  chaplain, 
308n ;  other  references  to,  91/?,  92/?, 
132,  141,  143,  158,  195,  198,  201, 
215,  240,  449/?,  450. 

Saunders,  Admiral,  letter  of,  to  Lord 
Chatham,  112/?. 

Savile,  Sir  George,  115,  120n,  121n, 
188,  304,  343,  366,  376,  452 ;  accuses 
the  House  of  Commons  of  corruption, 
199/;  his  Nullum  Tempus  Bill,  362n, 
363 ;  his  reply  to  Burke  on  clerical 
tests,  382. 

Sawbridge,  Alderman,  185/?,  224,  442. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  on  Holland  House, 
37n. 

Selwyn,  G.,  54,  55n,  63,  66;?,  71n,  78, 
81,  87,  208n,  216/?,  273,  278,  415, 
420 ;  Lord  Carlisle's  letters  to,  54jf, 
423/;  curiosities  of  his  correspond- 
ence, 76/?,  80/?  ;  his  daily  round  of 
life,  87 ;  official  sinecures  of,  94/; 
price  of  his  borough  of  Ludgershall, 
125  ;  his  genealogical  knowledge, 
271/;  on  Fox  and  Fitzpati  ick,  289/; 
in  the  hands  of  the  mob,  336  ;  his 
election  troubles,  431/;  on  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds's  candidature  for  Plympton, 
431  n;  on  Charles  Fox's  second  loss 
of  office,  451. 

Senior,  Nassau,  216«. 

Seymour,  Mr.,  on  the  persecution  of  the 
printers,  305. 

Shebbeare,  Dr.,437/. 

Shelburne,  Lord,  29,  31??,  121,  134,  201, 
224, 292, 332n ;  his  quarrel  with  Hen- 
ry Fox,  31/;  on  Lord  Holland's  edu- 
cation of  his  children,  42?? ;  his  polit- 
ical aspirations,  97 ;  character  of, 
13D/;  his  American  policy,  133; 
Dr.  Johnson's  anecdote  of,  132/? ;  re- 
tirement of,  135 ;  letter  to  Chatham, 
399??,  400. 

Shelley,  P.  B.,50n,  136.  440. 


INDEX. 


Slier i  dan,  R.  B.,  records  of  his  wagers, 
417/?. 

Shoreham,  New,  the  election  of  1770, 
349/*;  the  Christian  Club,  349 ;  ef- 
fect of  election  in  Parliament,  350/; 
disfranchisement  of  the  Christian 
Club,  352. 

Smith,  Adam,  211,  273. 

Smith,  Baron,  Lord  Holland's  explana- 
tion to,  250/?. 

Smith,  Benjamin,  intercepts  a  letter  of 
Lord  North's,  237w. 

Smollett,  T.,  21  In. 

Society,  fashionable,  in  the  early  y3ars 
of  George  III.,  gambling  and  low 
morality  of,  77/,  80/;  drinking  hab- 
its and  gout,  81/;  absence  of  relig- 
ion in,  85  ;  English  and  French,  271/, 
274/,  277/: 

Southey,  R.,266. 

Stanhope,  Lord,  on  Pitt  the  younger's 
overtures  to  the  Whigs,  122??,  123/?. 

Stanhope,  Mr.,  125. 

Stanislaus,  Augustus,  of  Poland,  letter 
of,  to  Charles  Yorke,  205. 

St.  Anne's  Hill,  Charles  Fox's  residence, 
58,  267,  409/?,  420. 

Stavordale,  Lord,  80,  12G,  421. 

St.  John,  Henry,  273. 

Stone,  Archbishop,  82. 

Strange,  Lord,  118,  163. 

Strangways,  Lady  Susan,  45/*. 

Struensee,  John  Frederic,  399n. 

Suffolk,  Lady,  433. 

Sunderland,  Lady,  6. 

Tankerville,  Lady,  drum -major  of, 

66w. 
Temple,  Lord,  55/?,  144/?,  160/?,  162??, 

186,  191,  195n,  201,  405,  427. 
Tests,  clerical,  agitation  against,  374/; 

debates  on,  in  House  of  Commons, 

379//.      >See   Commons,   House    of; 

Lindsey,  T. 
Thrale,  Mrs.,  on  Garrick  and  Wilkes, 

210. 
Thurlow,  Solicitor  -  general,  173,  292, 

398,400/?,  407,  415. 
Tooke,  Home.     See  Home,  Rev.  John. 
Tooke,  Mr.  William,  his   dispute   with 

Mr.  Thomas  De  Grey,  443/,  447. 
Tories,  Henry  Fox   as   leader  of  the, 

27/;  proscription  of  the  Whigs  by, 

29.     See  Fox,  Henry  ;  North,  Lord  ; 

Commons,  House  of,  etc. 
Townshend,  Alderman,  185/?,  224,  336, 

338,  443. 


Townshend,  Charles,  12/  122/?,  123/?, 
127,  276,  408,  427 ;  Henry  Fox  on, 
26/?,  94/?  ;  becomes  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  121;  death  of,  122. 

Townshend,  John,  49/?. 

Townshend,  Lady,  her  complaint  of  the 
royal  family,  395/ 

Townshend,  Lord,  434n. 

Townshend,  Thomas,  164,  272,  402,  437. 

Treasury,  epigram  on  the,  94/z. 

Trecothick,  Alderman,  224. 

Turner,  Dr.,  374n. 

Turner,  Sir  John,  304. 

Tyrone,  Earl  of,  273. 

Ulysses,  another  name  of  Junius,  370/ 
Unitarians  in  the  Church  of  England, 
374j*f ;  grievances  of,  386/    See  Non- 
conformists ;    Dissenters ;    Priestley, 
Dr. ,  etc. 
Unwin,  Mr.,  letter  of  Cowper  to,  268w. 

Victoria,  Queen,  conditions   of  office 

under,  compared    with    those    under 

George  III.,  89/,  100/ 
Virgil,  Charles  Fox's  admiration  for,  263. 
Virginia.     See  American  colonies. 
Voltaire,  visits  of  Charles  Fox  to,  59/?  ; 

on  religion  in  England,  85;  on  WTilkes, 

239/?,  240/?. 

Wakefield,  Gilbert,  261??. 

Waldegrave,  Lord,  guardian  of  George 
III.'s  childhood,  102??,  396,  397/?. 

Waldegrave,  Lady,  married  to  the  Duke 
of  Gloucester,  396/?. 

Walpole,  Sir  R.,  7??,  27,  426,  429  ;  how 
he  provided  for  his  family,  88/?,  89 ; 
fall  of,  218/?. 

Walpole,  Sir  Edward,  396. 

Walpole,  Horace,  his  account  of  a  fash- 
ionable ball,  7/;  on  Lord  Bute's  ad- 
ministration, 24/? ;  receives  a  delicate 
offer  from  Henry  Fox,  27/;  on  Hol- 
land House,  37/? ;  on  Lady  Sarah  Len- 
nox's beauty,  46/;  letters  to  Mann, 
64/?,  68/?,  74, 102/?,  231,  427  ;  on  Lord 
Weymouth,  68 ;  on  the  Earl  of  Sand- 
wich, GF<f;  letters  to  Conway,  70/? ; 
on  gambling  in  the  last  century,  78, 
80;  on  Lord  Cholmondeley's  intem- 
perance, 82 ;  his  description  of  Wes- 
ley, 86?? :  his  account  of  his  own  and 
his  brother's  sinecures,  88/?,  89 ;  on 
the  death  of  George  II.,  102/?;  on 
Lord  Rockingham's  adherents,  120w, 
121/? ;  on  Stephen  and  Charles  Fox, 


INDEX. 


469 


WAR 

17072, 175,  367 ;  on  Wilkes's  popular- 
ity, 181,  239n,  240«  ;  on  the  Duke  of 
Bedford,  187«  ;  on  Robertson's  "  Life 
of  Charles  V.,"  197« ;  on  Charles  Fox 
and  Wedderburn,  247n ;  his  migra- 
tions to  France,  272« ;  shopping  com- 
missions in  Paris,  273/;  letters  to 
Lord  and  Lady  Ossory,  273 ;  on  Da- 
vid Hume  and  his  French  admirers, 
276n  ;  his  acquaintance  with  Mine, 
du  Deffand,  280 ;  gossip  about  Lord 
Mayor  Crosby,  314rc ;  on  Wedder- 
burn's  treachery,  334 ;  on  Sir  J.  Low- 
ther,  358  ;  on  the  royal  family,  395  ; 
on  the  marriage  of  the  Duke  of 
Gloucester,  396,  397n ;  his  account 
of  the  gambling  at  Brooks's,  41 8«; 
on  things  best  worth  finding,  419;  on 
Charles  Fox's  debts,  423 ;  on  Charles 
Fox  and  Wilkes,  426 ;  as  chronicler 
of  Charles  Fox's  follies,  426/;  his  re- 
tirement from  Parliament,  426  ;  his 
objections  to  political  life,  427/;  on 
Charles  Fox's  motion  for  repeal  of 
Lord  Hardwicke's  Marriage  Act,  428 ; 
on  Lord  Clive,  436/2  ;  other  references, 
13,  17,  20/  29,  48,  63, 121, 134?2,  176, 
178,  416«,  U7n. 

Warburton,  Bishop  (of  Gloucester),  his 
account  of  a  morning  at  court,  84w. 
See  Gloucester,  Bishop  of. 

Watson,  Bishop,  don,  379w,  385/2,  431W. 

Wedderburn,  A.  (Lord  Loughborough), 
on  the  Middlesex  election,  173/  247/; 
Lord  Campbell  on,  173w;  dupes  the 
Opposition,  185/;  patriotic  speeches 
of,  225/;  his  historical  precedents, 
2l,(!«  ;  early  career  of,  330/*;  his  fac- 
titious patriotism,  331/;  Chatham's 
belief  in,  332 ;  is  made  solicitor-gen- 
eral,^. :  causes  general  astonishment, 
333;  Churchill,  Walpole,  and  Junius 
on,  333/;  his  treatment  by  the  House 
of  Commons,  334  ;  his  charges  against 
the  Opposition,  342/*;  his  quarrel  with 
Charles  Fox,  353/;  on  the  Royal  Mar- 
riage Bill,  40072 ;  minor  references  to, 
175,  185,  292,  39l7i,  398,  407,  438/ 
447,  452. 

Wellington,  Lord,  48. 

Wesley,  John,  described  by  Horace  Wal- 
pole, 80n;  declaration  of  his  follow- 
ers against  Lindsey,  378 ;  his  Tory- 
ism, ib.  ;  referred  to,  44072. 

Westminster,  address  of  electors  to  the 
king,  227. 

Weymouth,  Lord,  his  qualifications  for 


WIL 

the  Irish  Viceroyalty  and  as  Secre- 
tary of  State,  6(5/7*;  Horace  Walpole 
on,  67/;  other  references  to,  75,  123, 
158, 160,  195,  209,  239. 

Wharton,  Duke  of,  14872. 

Whately,  Mr.,  his  letters  in  the  Gren- 
ville  papers,  42t2,  65. 

Wheble,  John,  his  letter  to  the  House 
of  Commons,  31172,  312ti;  arrest  of, 
312 ;  proceedings  against  the  Speak- 
er's messenger,  345. 

Whigs,  proscription  of,  by  Henry  Fox, 
28/f ;  roused  by  the  Middlesex  elec- 
tion, 183/f;  agitation  begun  by,  185  ; 
gathering  at  the  Thatched  House  Tav- 
ern, 184 ;  counter-proceedings  of  the 
ministers,  187;  call  for  a  dissolution 
of  Parliament,  189 ;  their  success  in 
the  cities,  ib.  ;  Chatham's  esteem  for, 
192;  defection  of  Charles  Yorke, 
201/T;  their  demeanor  during  the 
quarrel  of  the  city  and  Commons, 
296jf,  337 ;  treachery  of  Wedderburn, 
332/f;  their  zeal  in  the  cause  of  or- 
der, 342  ;  calumnies  against,  ib.  ;  vis- 
it the  lord  mayor  in  the  Tower,  34"/; 
on  the  question  of  clerical  tests,  376 ; 
their  affection  for  Charles  Fox  in  later 
days,  434t2.  See  Commons,  House 
of;  Rockingham,  Lord. 

Whitaker,  Sergeant,  counsel  against  the 
Middlesex  petition,  171,  172tj. 

Whitehead,  Paul,  9172. 

Wilkes,  Mfc  Israel,  140?2. 

Wilkes,  John,  his  description  of  Sir  Fran- 
cis Dashwood,  26n  ;  on  Alpine  scen- 
ery, 55 ;  on  parliamentary  bribery, 
1 25 ;  Mr.  Gladstone  on,  140 ;  his  early 
life  and  domestic  quarrels,  140/;  his 
address  to  the  Berwick  freemen,  Hln; 
purchases  the  borough  of  Aylesbury, 
ib. ;  his  profligacy,  and  cruel  treat- 
ment of  his  wife,  141  ;  becomes  ob- 
noxious to  the  government,  142/f; 
his  "Essay  on  Woman"  and  North 
Briton,  143  ;  his  duels,  143,  144  ; 
correspondence  with  the  secretaries 
of  state,  144?2 ;  deserted  by  his  friends, 
ib.  ;  persecution  of,  14r>/7*;  goes  into 
exile,  14672 ;  letter  from  France,  146  ; 
outlawed,  and  remains  on  the  Conti- 
nent, 147/;  becomes  literary  executor 
of  Churchill,  148/;  his  failure  in  the 
attempt,  149/;  narrative  of  his  suffer- 
ings, 150;  returns  to  England,  and 
becomes  candidate  for  the  city  of 
London,  151  ;  enthusiasm  of  the  citi- 


470 


INDEX. 


zens  for,  152;  his  candidature  for 
Middlesex,  152/T;  proceedings  of  the 
judges  against,  155 ;  condemned  to 
tine  and  imprisonment,  ib. ;  collision 
of  his  partisans  with  the  troops,  ib.  • 
ingenious  application  of,  to  the  House 
of  Commons,  158;  at  the  bar  of  the 
Commons,  158/;  Byron's  lines  on, 
159n;  debate  on  proposed  expulsion 
of,  from  the  House,  159/f;  his  expul- 
sion voted,  161 ,  elected  alderman, 
102;  re-elected  for  Middlesex,  163; 
hostile  vote  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
163/;  again  re-elected  for  Middlesex, 
168;  great  debate  on,  in  the  Com- 
mons, 169/f ;  his  election  for  Middle- 
sex quashed,  171 ;  petition  of  his  elec- 
tors, 171/;  general  enthusiasm  and 
testimonials  of  sympathy  for,  178, 
179w;  action  against  Lord  Halifax, 
181  ;  causes  of  his  popularity,  182/*; 
agitation  of  his  partisans,  183/f ;  his 
pamphlet  against  Lord  Chatham,  195n; 
Chatham's  defence  of,  196/T;  debates 
in  the  Lords  and  Commons  on,  197/T; 
flattered  by  his  admirers,  234n,  2Son ; 
Junius's  communications  to,  235n; 
letter  to  the  lord  mayor,  235;  limits 
of  his  ambition,  ib.  ;  popular  joy  at 
his  liberation  from  prison,  236,  237n, 
243  ;  elected  Sheriff  and  Lord  Mayor 
of  London,  237/*;  opposition  of  the 
court,  237rc,  238  ;  irksomeness  of  his 
civic  duties,  238 ;  becomes  chamber- 
lain, ib. ;  amusements  of  his  leisure, 
239 ;  complimented  by  Lord  Mans- 
field, 240 ;  Walpole,  Gibbon,  and  Vol- 
taire on  his   social  qualities,  239??, 


YOU 

240?? ;  his  meeting  with  Johnson,  240; 
his  death,  and  character  of  his  work, 
240/*;  annulment  of  the  resolution  of 
the  Commons  for  his  expulsion,  243« ; 
on  the  condition  of  the  press,  291 ; 
his  leadership  of  the  city  in  its  cam- 
paign in  behalf  of  the  press,  311 ;  his 
practical  jokes  on  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, 811»,  312??,,  313;  testimonial 
of  the  Common  Council  to,  346/;  his 
quarrel  with  John  Home,  44 Iff;  mi- 
nor references  to,  69,  70,  91»,  121,314, 
325,  345. 

Wilkes,  Miss,  145,  146,  236,  238,  239. 

Wilkes,  Mrs.  John,  IMff. 

Williams,  Gilly,  79,  432. 

Williams,  Sir  Charles  Hanbury,  8,  66??,. 

Wilmot,  Sir  Eardley,  201/. 

Wilson,  Dr.,  185??. 

Winnington,  Mr.,  250??.. 

Woodfall,  editor  of  the  Public  Adver- 
tiser, trial  of,  230;  publishes  speech 
of  the  Duke  oi  Grafton,  297 ;  letter 
of  Charles  Fox  to,  371  ;  at  the  bar 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  444/;  his 
discharge,  449. 

Wordsworth,  sonnet  of,  on  Lowther 
Castle,  357 ;  treatment  of  his  family 
by  Lord  Lonsdale,  35 In. 

Yorke,  Charles,  denounces  Henry  Fox, 
14;  vacillation  of,  201/  202,  203?*; 
career  and  character  of,  203/T ;  joint 
author  of  the  "Athenian  Letters," 
203«  ;  consents  to  become  chancellor, 
206/;  his  remorse  and  death,  208/T. 

Yorke,  John,  208. 

Young,  Arthur,  276«,  374. 


THE    END. 


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